


never happens like you think it should

by dreamtiwasanarchitect



Series: the good are never easy (kidnapping AU) [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: (Or As Much As Possible In a Kidnapping Scenario), (Why Is There No Existing Tag For That???), Alternate Universe - Mob, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Booker | Sebastian le Livre & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani Friendship, Canon-Typical Violence, Captivity, Caretaking, Casual Murder, Cats, Developing Relationship, Dirty Talk, Domestic Fluff, Drinking, Enthusiastic Consent, Explicit Consent, Hand Jobs, Harlequin Romance Vibes, Hostage Situations, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Intercrural Sex, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani is an Incurable Romantic, Kidnapping, Light Bondage, M/M, Mutual Pining, Nicky & Booker Friendship, Nicky Is Not A Mouse, Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani Friendship, Oral Sex, Past Child Abuse, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Power Imbalance, Rimming, Slow Burn, Smoking, Spanking, Switching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:27:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 27,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28743966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamtiwasanarchitect/pseuds/dreamtiwasanarchitect
Summary: Being in the kidnapping business, Nicky thinks, is rather distasteful, but it’s more or less a matter of routine. You take someone, the family pays, everyone goes home happy—grazie, prego, kiss kiss.Just as long as you don’t catch feelings for your captive.(Or: A trashy pseudo-bodice ripper disguised as something vaguely resembling aTrustAU.)
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: the good are never easy (kidnapping AU) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2169891
Comments: 568
Kudos: 594





	1. mission critical

**Author's Note:**

> This was inevitable??? 
> 
> In one sense, this is a _Trust_ AU/fusion, but in another sense...it is Not. If you've seen _Trust_ , you will recognize basic elements of the setting and some scenes ~~that live rent-free in my brain are copy-pasted from the script~~ that are similar. If you haven't seen _Trust_ , you should, because it has a level of emotional and thematic complexity this fic will not, and you will not be spoiled for most of the major plot points outside of "there is a kidnapping."

By the time he arrives at his uncle’s ostentatious villa, Nicky is thoroughly agitated, both from the various minor indignities he suffered on his fourteen-hour flight, and from the more glaring indignity of being summoned here in the first place. 

He hasn’t seen Matteo in nearly three years, and he hasn’t called Italy home in almost twice as long, but when the boss calls, you answer, even if you said you were done—because family, he thinks bitterly, is never done. 

He smooths out his jacket and runs a hand through his slightly-greasy hair, then steps out of the sleek black car. Hidden behind tinted windows, the driver pulls away without a word, leaving Nicky one final moment to collect himself before the door opens. 

A silent and unsmiling valet leads him through the long hallway to a sitting room where his uncle is waiting. Matteo has put on some weight, and his hair is a lighter shade of gray than when Nicky last saw him, but, standing in front of the fireplace in his impeccable suit, he looks as imposting as ever. 

“Nico,” he says, voice deceptively warm. “Welcome home.” He holds out his arms in an embrace. 

“Thank you, uncle.” Nicky steps forward and kisses both his cheeks in greeting.

“Come, sit. A drink?”

Alcohol is the last thing he needs right now, but you don’t refuse the don. “Yes, thank you.” Nicky accepts the tumbler and takes a tentative sip. It’s brandy that he knows is very expensive, but he’d be just as happy drinking cheap wine. Or, given his current exhaustion, coffee. He hides his grimace by wiping at his mouth. 

Matteo settles into a plush armchair across from him and grins. “It’s good, eh?”

“Mm,” Nicky agrees blandly. He forces a smile and tries not to jiggle his leg with impatience. Demanding to know why he’s here will only be met with a ranting lecture, possibly accompanied by some light violence. 

“You’ve been well?”

“Yes, thank you. And you?”

“Well, on the whole.” Matteo’s grin is lopsided, a trait that unfortunately runs in the family. “Business is good.”

The business is mostly drug running (high-quality white powders) with a bit of extortion (politicians, police) sprinkled in here and there. 

“Though,” Matteo continues, “one of the ah, branches of our operation has hit a bit of a snag.”

Now he has Nicky’s attention. “And I’m here to help.” 

His uncle looks pleased that he’s caught on so quickly. “Yes, Nico. Carlo has fucked the entire thing up, and we need someone who can get a job done.”

Nicky’s stomach turns a little as his mind flips through all the unsavory possibilities. “What is it?”

Matteo pulls out his phone. After a few taps, he tosses it to Nicky. Pulled up on the screen is a photo of a young man—probably around Nicky’s age, he thinks—with a mop of dark curls. He’s crouched against a wall, hands tied in front of him.

Fuck. “Who is he?”

“His name is Joe al-Kaysani. He’s a tour guide at the contemporary art museum.” Disdain leaks out of his uncle’s every word. 

“I didn’t realize that was such a lucrative position.”

Matteo’s face darkens by a fraction at Nicky’s tone. He scoffs. “It certainly isn’t. But it doesn’t need to be. His father is Ibrahim al-Kaysani, who’s worth nearly five billion.” 

Nicky glances back down at the photo. “Banking?” he guesses.

Matteo sneers. “ _Diversified_. But mostly real estate.” 

“What is the demand?”

“Fifty million.” 

If his uncle wanted his opinion, he would have asked, so Nicky says nothing about how Matteo is overplaying his hand. 

“We have Copley prepared to handle negotiations,” Matteo continues. “I just need you to handle _him_.” 

Being in the kidnapping business, Nicky thinks, is rather distasteful, but it’s more or less a matter of routine. You take someone, the family pays, everyone goes home happy—grazie, prego, kiss kiss.

Nicky stares at the photo. Most of the man’s—Joe’s—face is obscured by the tilt of his head, but his body language reminds Nicky of an animal cowering before the slaughter. Some protective instinct claws at Nicky’s chest, which is one of a thousand reasons to walk away from this, but he can see where his uncle’s jacket hangs heavier on one side, and he knows walking away isn’t an option. 

“One last favor, for your old uncle, eh?” Matteo prompts. “It’ll be worth your time. Two of that fifty is yours.”

“Five,” Nicky counters, and tosses his uncle back his phone.

Matteo laughs. “If all goes well? Deal.” 

They shake on it. 

———

After a few hours of sleep, a shower, and a change of clothes, Nicky drives to the outskirts of Rome. He’s on the way to Moretti farm. Thanks to the greasing of some government palms, the family has long been a friend to the di Genovas, and he’s meeting Carlo—and Joe—at the edge of their property.

Stalks of wheat begin to surround him on either side of the road, and a few minutes later he sees the bright red glint of Carlo’s middle-life crisis Lamborghini. 

Nicky pulls up a few feet short and gets out of his own car, borrowed from his uncle and considerably more nondescript. Carlo walks forward to greet him. They embrace quickly, but Nicky’s attention is focused on the third person in the middle of the field.

Joe is hooded, but his hands are untied. His posture is rigid and getting tenser the closer Nicky comes. He flinches slightly when he feels Nicky start to pull at the black cloth over his head. 

Nicky tries to tug the hood off slowly, but Joe still squints against the sun before blinking at Nicky with wide, shining eyes. Nicky pockets the fabric and takes in the rest of Joe’s appearance. He’s dressed simply in rumpled jeans and a wrinkled t-shirt, the same he wore in the picture Matteo had. His curls are—distracting, tight and springy, falling over his forehead, and Nicky forces himself to stop noticing. Joe has what appears to be several days worth of stubble. He’s tall—he might have an inch or two on Nicky, and he’s very fit, though not bulky. Which is just something Nicky needs to be aware of, in the event of any resistance or escape attempts. 

Speaking of. “Shouldn’t he be tied up?” Nicky asks Carlo.

Carlo shrugs and leans over into the backseat of the car. He tosses Nicky a length of rope. “Your problem now.”

Nicky catches it and turns back to Joe, who starts edging away. He doesn’t get far before Nicky grabs his wrist and spins him, forcing him over the car. Carlo grunts in frustration at the possibility of a dent or scrape, while Joe makes a small sound of pain as his chest hits the hood. Nicky presses close, crowding him in. 

“Don’t try it,” he warns Joe in English. According to his profile on the museum website, Joe’s first language is Arabic, but he’s fluent in English and German. His Italian and French, however, are only conversational. 

Joe is still and compliant as Nicky ties his hands behind his back, which leads to some intrusive thoughts about what it would be like to have Joe like this in a scenario that didn’t involve a hefty ransom. Nicky pushes those ideas away and steps back as soon as he’s certain Joe’s hands are secured.

“We’re done?” Carlo asks impatiently.

“Not yet,” Nicky tells him. “I have a message from my uncle.”

Carlo raises an eyebrow. Nicky pulls his gun and shoots Carlo in the head before his face can even melt into fear.

There’s a strangled cry from behind him. Nicky looks over his shoulder and sees Joe’s head is turned. He’s staring at Carlo’s body in horror, eyes huge and wet. 

Nicky turns away. He fires off a text to their cleaner—location, summary of the mess—then takes a moment to steel his resolve. He would rather keep looking at Carlo, with his head haloed in blood, than face Joe and his innocent terror, but it’s inevitable. 

He pockets his piece and stalks around to the trunk of his car. He unlocks it before coming back to Joe, whose forehead is now pressed against the hood of the Lamborghini. His breaths are coming in heavy pants. 

Nicky wants to give him a minute, but there’s no time to waste—they’ll be making half their trek up a mountain in the near-dark as is. He wraps a hand around Joe’s bicep and tugs. Joe doesn’t move.

“Come on, we’re going,” Nicky tells him. He pulls harder and Joe straightens. He’s shaking a little.

“Please,” Joe says, then repeats it in Italian. He opens his mouth and closes it, then swallows and tries again. “Please, don’t—what do you want?”

For the first time, it occurs to Nicky that Joe has _no_ idea what’s happening—he hasn’t realized this is just about money and not any other terrible thing.

Nicky’s stomach twists again. “Only money,” he says, trying to somehow sound soothing and authoritative at the same time.

“But I don’t— _oh_.” 

“Yes,” Nicky agrees. “Come.” He yanks on Joe’s arm again, and this time Joe lets himself be dragged to the back of Nicky’s car.

Joe stares down into the open trunk, then glances back at Nicky, expression beseeching. 

“In,” Nicky says. 

For a moment, he thinks Joe will argue, but then he tries to lower himself into the trunk, a task Nicky realizes will be almost impossible, bound as Joe is, so he holds Joe’s arms as he steps in, then lowers his torso down. 

Joe curls around himself in the small space, eyes still shining up at Nicky, who considers putting the hood back on him. 

For reasons he doesn’t want to examine too closely, he decides against it and slams the trunk shut. Back in the driver’s seat, he lets his forehead drop down to the steering wheel. He takes several deep breaths before he starts the car and begins the long drive to the countryside. 


	2. freeze frame

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so ??? and !!! at the response to this, thanks to everyone who validated my poor life choices

Things admittedly have not been _good_ for the last twenty-four hours, but in the trunk of the mystery man’s car, the reality of Joe’s situation truly sets in.

As far as kidnappings go, his had been relatively uneventful. Joe was headed home from MACRO—in broad daylight, even—when he was dragged into an alley. He put up a fight until he felt a gun pressing to his back. He was prepared for being patted down and stripped of his wallet and phone, but what he hadn’t excepted was being held in an empty, decaying room for what he guessed was a full day. 

Still, even then, he’d been more confused than anything. But seeing that man—his original captor—shot point-blank in the head replays over and over in Joe’s mind’s eye as his new captor drives him further and further out of the city. 

That, too, sparks a new panic. Back in Rome, he’d had this (obviously misguided) belief that whatever the hell was happening would resolve quickly, that he might not even have to miss work. Now, he wonders if he’ll ever see his flat again. 

Joe’s stomach knots as he thinks about Pancake. She was a tough little kitten when he rescued her from the dumpster outside his building, but two years of being served canned food every night at seven has made her soft. He thinks about her all alone in the flat, going hungry and even starving to death, and tears prick at his eyes. He hopes Nile, his young American coworker, will think about her when she realizes Joe is missing. 

The drive to wherever he’s headed feels like hours, though Joe has no way of keeping track. He eventually stops trying not to cry, and the benefit is that he sobs so hard he tires himself out and manages to doze for at least a few minutes. 

He wakes up as the car rolls to a stop. His body tenses even more, which he didn’t know was possible. He hears a car door shut, then the trunk opens. 

Silhouetted against the sunset—so they really did drive for hours, Joe thinks—is the man who tied him up and put him in the trunk. He looks at Joe the same way he did in the field—eyes intent in a way that says he notices Joe’s every twitch and fidget, expression inscrutable. 

The man lifts him from the trunk. Joe attempts to cooperate, but his legs are stiff from hours curled in a fetal position, and his hands are still tied behind his back. Once Joe’s standing, the man turns him around, letting Joe lean with his front pressed to the back of the car.

He feels the man’s hands at his wrists and is momentarily hopeful he’s getting untied, but the man just slides a couple fingers through the rope, and Joe realizes he’s testing the knots. 

“Move your fingers,” the man tells him, warm breath ghosting over Joe’s neck. 

Joe does as instructed without issue, and the man takes a steps back. He turns Joe to face him, and before Joe can even consider protesting the hood is pulled back over his head, which immediately ratchets his anxiety up another several notches. 

The man’s grip on Joe’s bicep is firm but not bruising as he pulls him along to their destination, wherever that may be. After several minutes of walking over uneven and rocky terrain, Joe realizes two things—one, it was a good thing he was wearing trainers when he was abducted, and two, the man is taking him up a mountain. 

Stumbling along, Joe weighs his options. He could try to fight the man and push him off the cliff side, but that would be easier if Joe could actually see the cliff side. If he weren’t very literally fighting with his hands tied behind his back, Joe thinks he’d have a fair shot at taking the guy down—they’re of a size, and Joe knows how to land a punch, but as it is, his odds of success seem slim. What’s more, killing or injuring his captor might not actually be in his best interests. Even if he somehow won their tussle, he’d still be lost in the middle of nowhere, tied up and without a phone or any other resource. Joe resigns himself to his fate, at least for now. 

He considers himself in shape, and he’s gone on several day-long hikes over the years, but less than half an hour (or so he guesses) into this forced trek, Joe feels worn out. The exertion, combined with the fabric covering his mouth and nose, makes it hard for him to breathe. His inhales become increasingly shallow and decreasingly beneficial. He’s dizzy. Will the man drag him if he passes out, he wonders? 

As light-headedness threatens to overtake him, Joe notices they’ve stopped moving. There’s a hand on his shoulder, pressing down. The man is talking, Joe realizes. 

“Sit,” the man is saying, “come on, sit down.” 

Joe lets his legs fold under him. The man holds the weight of Joe’s upper body and guides it to rest against a cool, solid surface.

The hood comes off and Joe sucks in a breath like he’s surfaced from underwater. That’s when it dawns on him—“I’m having a panic attack.”

The man, standing about a foot away from him, just nods. “Yes. Focus on your breathing.”

The part of his brain that isn’t having a complete meltdown recognizes the absurdity of the situation, but Joe closes his eyes and breathes in and out to the count of four. It helps.

Once his heart rate’s dropped, he opens his eyes. For the first time, he takes a good, long look at the man who’s brought him here. He has thick, brown hair that falls forward into his face, stormy sea eyes, perfect bone structure and a strong nose. His ears are pierced with little silver hoops, the kind of earrings Nile always called “thotty” when she saw them on a guy. 

Joe lets out a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob, then claps a hand over his mouth.

The guy doesn’t react, just waits with his hands in the pockets of his jacket, which stretches over his broad shoulders. 

Shit. Joe needs to stop noticing how good-looking he is. Lusting after your captor is probably how Stockholm Syndrome starts.

Instead, he tries to rationalize what’s happening. Yes, he’s been kidnapped, but the man told him this was a ransom situation. Joe and his dad don’t have the best father-son relationship—things have been a little weird ever since Joe came out—but he’s still confident his dad will pay to get him home alive. Or at least, his mother and sisters will convince him. 

All these people—whoever they are—want is money. Joe is going to be fine. He shuts his eyes again and tells himself that three times, each mantra paired with a deep exhale. 

He must look calmer when he blinks his eyes open, because the man says, “You can continue?”

Joe nods. The guy puts the hood back on Joe and helps him stand. They continue along at the same laborious pace, which must be somewhat irritating for his captor, but he makes no attempt to hurry Joe as his feet scramble along the rocks and roots. 

Joe has a million questions, but he’s afraid to ask any of them. The man hasn’t been cruel so far, and Joe doesn’t want to provoke him into it. Eventually, the ground evens out, and they come to a stop. The hand on his bicep falls away and the hood comes off again. 

Now there are two men standing in front of him. The newcomer is tall but slouched, with sandy blond hair and some sort of automatic weapon, which he’s holding very casually. Joe glances around as subtly as he can, trying to get his bearings. It looks like they’re in a cave, which is dimly lit by a few battery-powered lamps scattered around the ground. 

The blond man drops to kneel next to Joe while the man—the first man—walks behind him. As he unbinds Joe’s hands, his friend claps an actual shackle around Joe’s ankle. It connects to a chain that’s at least a few feet long, and the chain is attached to a crumbling stone structure against the cave wall. 

His original captor presses a bottle of water into his hands. Unthinkingly, Joe drains half of it before it occurs to him that the water could be spiked with…something. He wonders if he should try to make himself throw up, but if his captors really wanted to drug him, he wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight, so he decides to let it go and hope for the best.

To his left, there’s an air mattress with a pillow and blanket on top of it. This must be what passes for five-star accommodations in the world of kidnappings. Assuming the bed is meant to be his, Joe sinks down on the mattress, leg muscles twinging in protest at the squatting movement. Across the cave, he notices a proper cot and what looks like a cooler, both probably out of the radius of his chain.

The man and his friend have moved several paces away and are talking amongst themselves. Somehow, Joe can tell the first man, the dark-haired guy, is the one in charge. 

He must feel Joe’s gaze, because he turns and raises his voice to address Joe. “If you try to get him—” he nods at the blond man “—to help you escape, I’ll shoot him,” he says.

Joe is appalled, but the blond man cracks up laughing. Joe sees the dark-haired man’s lips twitch, the closest he’s gotten to a smile, or really any sort of facial expression beyond intense neutrality. Joe decides to interpret this little interaction as a reassuring sign of humanity, rather a terrifying marker of insanity. 

The dark-haired man and the blond guy exchange a few more words, then dark-haired man starts heading back toward the cave entrance. He’s leaving, Joe realizes, and a fresh knife of terror stabs in Joe’s stomach. The man unnerves him, sure, but he’s a known quantity compared to this other man. 

“Wait,” Joe blurts. He makes a grab for the man’s pant leg, but his self-preservation instinct kicks in at the last moment and he pulls his hand away as his fingertips barely brush the fabric. 

The man stops in his tracks and turns around. Joe catches a glimmer of surprise on his face and almost congratulates himself on provoking a reaction. 

The man crouches down so their faces are level. “What is it?”

Joe swallows, feeling stupid. “I live alone,” he says. “And I have a cat. And she hasn’t been fed in awhile now and I—I just, I need to know that she’s okay.” 

His voice breaks, and he’s expecting to be mocked or even hit, but the man just nods. “She will be taken care of,” he tells Joe, his low voice steady. 

Something twisted unwinds in Joe’s chest. “Her name is Pancake,” he tells him.

“Okay,” the man says. He waits for a moment, as if he’s ready to field more ridiculous requests from his captive, but before Joe can think of anything else to say, the man stands and leaves. 

Joe wipes at his eyes and lets himself be distracted by the blond man, who’s flicking off the lamps. He leaves the light that’s furthest from them on, keeping the cave from plunging into total darkness, then kicks off his boots and climbs on to the cot.

Joe takes that to mean it’s bedtime. He toes off his own shoes, curls up on the air mattress, and falls into an uneasy sleep. 

———

When Joe wakes up, the blond man is sitting up on his cot, reading a paperback. He glances over to Joe, watching as he stirs.

“Hey,” the man says. “You need to piss?” He has a French accent. 

“Um. Yeah,” Joe admits, shifting under his blanket. 

The man—Joe decides to nickname him Frenchie—gets up. Machine gun in hand, he approaches Joe’s air mattress and looks at him expectantly.

“Oh,” Joe says when he realizes what the man’s waiting for. He pushes his ankle forward. 

Frenchie leans down and unlocks the shackle. “No running, yeah?”

“No, no running,” Joe agrees quickly. He stands and follows Frenchie out of the cave to an open, grassy area—Joe wonders idly if “glen” is the proper term. The sun is high enough in the sky that it must be approaching noon. When it’s clear they’re not going any further, Joe turns to face the outer cave wall and undoes his pants. 

“So,” Joe asks as he pees, “vous êtes français?”

“Oui,” Frenchie says. “Vous parlez?”

“Juste un peu.”

“C’est bon. We’ll stick to English.”

Business attended to, Frenchie leads Joe back into the cave. Instead of chaining Joe up again, the man gestures him over to his cot. He opens the cooler. “Breakfast. Lunch. Whatever,” he says. “Take your pick.”

Joe peers into the cooler, which is full of individually wrapped sandwiches and various fruits. His stomach growls at the sight of food, reminding him this is the first food he’s been offered during his captivity. He grabs an orange and picks a sandwich at random. After a moment of awkward hesitation, he takes both back to his mattress.

Frenchie is a little more selective, rooting through the cooler for a minute before choosing a sandwich. Joe unwraps his own, flatbread with some sort of prosciutto and mozzarella. Even though it breaks his mother’s heart, he’s never been so glad not to keep halal, especially when he takes his first bite.

“This is good,” he says, trying not to eat too ravenously. “Did you make this?”

Frenchie laughs, mouth full of his own sandwich. “No.” 

“Well. Compliments to, uh, whoever.”

They finish their sandwiches in silence. As Joe starts to peel his orange, he sneaks a look at Frenchie, who’s watching him lazily. It puts him a little more at ease than the dark-haired man’s hawk-like gaze did.

It helps him work up the courage to ask, “So, um…what’s happening?”

Frenchie raises his eyebrows. “What do you mean.”

“Like, with the ransom. If you’ve—I mean, not necessarily you, but you know, your, uh organization—has been in touch with my family?” He tries to sound casual, like being kidnapped is a totally chill thing that happens to people, but he’s not sure he succeeds.

“You’ll have to ask the boss,” Frenchie tells him. 

“And, uh, when can I do that?”

“Whenever he comes back.” So, Joe thinks, he was right about the dark-haired man being in charge. 

“You don’t know when that might be?”

Frenchie just looks at him. “You’ll have to wait and see.”

Joe strips a stray bit of skin off an orange wedge. “You’re a shit conversationalist,” he says absently, then immediately panics. He snaps his head up to look at Frenchie, but to Joe’s relief, he’s smiling a little.

“Nothing I haven’t heard before,” he says breezily. 

Joe grins as he finishes his orange.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love hearing from you. Feel free to scream @ me on [Tumblr](https://dreamtiwasanarchitect.tumblr.com/) too.


	3. touch base

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I've got the Sunday scaries, here's the next installment. As always, I love hearing from you! Feel free to catch me on [Tumblr](https://dreamtiwasanarchitect.tumblr.com/) too.

While he waits for Copley, Nicky lights his second cigarette of the day. He never manages to kick the habit entirely, but when he was in Belize he had it more or less under control. He’s afraid that if he’s in Italy much longer, he’ll start burning through a pack a day.

Copley arrives at the cafe precisely on time. The man is never late or early—always perfectly punctual, always dressed like a uni professor in sweaters and button downs. 

“Nico,” he says, sliding into the seat across from Nicky. “Good to see you again.” 

Nicky inclines his head. “So, have you made contact?”

“Yes, I’ve been in touch with the family’s head of security. Everything is going through her. But we have a bit of an issue.”

Nicky frowns. “And what’s that?”

“They’re getting a lot of calls, as you might expect. Apparently they all sound the same. She doesn’t believe we have him.”

“Fuck.” Nicky rubs at his brow and sighs. “So we make them believe.”

“How?”

Nicky glares over the top of his sunglasses. “You tell me.”

“Finger in the post is a tried and true method,” Copley says mildly.

“No. Come on.” 

“Talk to the man,” Copley suggests. “Get him to tell you something no one but his family would know.” 

“And how do you suggest I go about that?” 

Copley shrugs. “Get him drunk?”

Nicky blows out a stream of smoke and glances at the bar across the way. It could work, he supposes.

“Tell me about the head of security,” he says. “Why is she handling this?”

“Al-Kaysani’s away, traveling through Asia on business. He’s aware of the situation but he’s appointed her to resolve it.”

“You know that because she told you?”

Copley smiles wryly. “Of course not. Other channels.” 

“Hm.” Nicky leans back in his chair. “What are you taking?” he asks.

“What am I..?”

“Your cut.”

“Ah.” Copley hesitates. “It’s impolite to discuss salary, you know.”

“You’re freelance,” Nicky points out.

Copley chuckles. “One mil.” 

Nicky nods and pushes his chair out to stand. “I’ll be in touch this time tomorrow with whatever I find out.”

“I’ll be waiting,” Copley says. 

Nicky is about to turn to leave, fully intending to stick Copley with the bill, but at the last minute he remembers he had another matter to discuss with him.

“One more thing,” Nicky says. 

Copley blinks. “Yes?”

Nicky grips the back of the rusty iron chair. “I need you to check on his cat.”

“You mean—” Copley leans forward and lowers his voice. “Al-Kaysani’s cat?”

Nicky nods. “Make sure someone’s feeding it,” he instructs, and then spins on his heel before he can see Copley’s reaction.

———

Copley works fast. When Nicky arrives back in Calabria, he has a text: _Museum coworker is looking after cat._

Hopefully that information alone can barter some good will from Joe.

Nicky tucks two folded camp chairs under one arm and the newly-acquired bottle of sambuca under the other. Without a bound and blind captive stumbling alongside him, the walk up the mountain only takes fifteen minutes.

Outside the cave, he whistles. Sebastien appears as Nicky’s setting up the chairs across from each other.

“Any problems?”

“None,” Sebastien says. 

“Good. Is he chained right now?”

Sebastien nods and surveys the scene. “Want me to get him?”

Nicky nods. “And bring a lamp, please.” The sun is already starting to set. 

“You got it.”

Nicky pulls the two collapsable cups from his pocket and sets them on the ground next to the sambuca before settling into one of the chairs. 

Moments later, Joe emerges from the cave, Sebastien close behind. Joe looks wary, which is only wise, but he no longer appears panicked as he was yesterday, which is heartening. 

There were many reasons Nicky chose Sebastien for this particular job. He was there when Nicky first killed a man, more than ten years ago now. It was meant to be a clean shot through the head, but Nicky’s shaking hands threw off his aim and he botched it, and it took a few more bullets to finish the job. It was messy. Instead of berating him, Sebastien was kind, and he took Nicky along for rifle practice until Nicky could outshoot even him. 

He knew Sebastien could be trusted not to be cruel beyond what was necessary. 

Nicky gestures for Joe to sit, and he does. Nicky pulls his pack from his jacket and extends it toward Joe.

“Oh,” he says, and shakes his head. “No, uh, thank you, I don’t—”

Nicky quiets his explanation with a wave. He takes out his fifth cigarette of the day (it had been a long drive back here) and lights it.

“A drink?” he asks around the cigarette.

“Uh. Sure,” Joe says. 

Nicky pours a healthy measure of sambuca in one of the tin cups and passes it to Joe. Before he can offer, Sebastien is already holding out the other cup, waiting.

He shoots Sebastien a pointed look, but fills his cup all the same.

“Salut,” Sebastien says, lifting his cup. Joe looks between them, clearly unsure what to do. He sips his sambuca, shoulders rounded defensively. 

Nicky wishes he’d sit up straight. It would help him feel less guilty. But that thought reminds him of the good news.

“Your cat,” he says, and Joe looks up from staring into his own lap. “She is being looked after by one of your coworkers.”

Joe’s face breaks into a relieved smile. “Oh, that’s—that’s great,” he breathes. “Thank you, thank you so much, um—” He hesitates. “What should I—is there something I can call you? 

Sebastien is silent, clearly waiting for Nicky to make the call. Nicky takes a long drag of his cigarette to cover his indecision.

“I’ve been, uh, sort of calling you ‘Frenchie,’ just in my head,” Joe admits sheepishly, glancing at Sebastien. 

“Keep calling him that,” Nicky deadpans. Sebastien scowls but doesn’t say anything.

After a moment, Nicky relents. “You can call me Nicky,” he says, keeping his focus studiously fixed on Joe, ignoring the shocked look Sebastien shoots his way.

“Nicky,” Joe repeats, sounding almost pleased. He gives Nicky a quick, furtive smile that doesn’t last nearly long enough before he looks questioningly at Sebastien. 

“Call me Booker,” he says firmly. 

Joe looks confused, but he accepts it with a nod. 

Glancing up at Sebastien, Nicky tilts his head toward the cave. He doesn’t think he’ll need to resort to violence to get Joe to spill some family secrets—at least, he desperately hopes not—but if he does, it’s better if Joe doesn’t associate it with Sebastien. 

Whether or not Sebastien understands this nuance, he gets the gist. He sets the lamp between Nicky and Joe, refills his cup, and meanders off. Joe’s eyes follow him until he’s out of sight, and when he looks back to Nicky, Nicky can tell he’s grown more nervous. 

“So,” Nicky says, letting his legs splay in the chair in what he hopes conveys an unthreatening casualness, “tell me something about yourself.”

Joe blinks at him, clearly taken aback but determined to remain compliant. “Like—like what?”

Nicky shrugs, trying to affect a nonchalant curiosity. “What was it like, when you were growing up?” He holds up the sambuca, and Joe leans in, cup extended for Nicky to refill. 

“I guess it was mostly normal,” Joe says as Nicky pours. “I mean, at least in a lot of ways. Not that we didn’t have a lot of, you know, privilege,” he adds quickly, taking a drink. “But I don’t know, it’s not like we played with bricks of gold or something. We did weird kid stuff.”

“We?”

“My sisters, Nnenna and Effie and I.” Joe leans shifts in his chair. “One time—I was probably six or seven, I think—we all went to the United States with my dad, when he went for business. There was a tornado while we were there and we had to go to the creepy basement of this fancy hotel to wait it out. Not, not a serious one or anything—no one got hurt, no houses got destroyed, but we’d never even heard of a tornado. So after that, we were basically obsessed.” He grins, lovely dimples on full display, and Nicky is riveted.

“We’d play this, I don’t know, this game, where we pretended there was a tornado and we had to shelter from it. We’d crawl into cupboards or under some stairs and bring like, actual rations, and we’d just stay there huddled until we decided the tornado was gone.” Joe laughs. “I don’t know why we thought it was fun.” 

Maybe you just wanted to feel safe, Nicky thinks, but doesn’t say it—he’s probably just projecting. “Did your parents know you played like this?”

“Yeah, my mom did. She hated it. It creeped her out. She wanted my sisters to play with dolls and she wanted me to, I don’t know, pretend to be a surgeon.” Joe takes another drink. “My dad was gone a lot, so I don’t think he knew.” He rubs at his arms. 

“Are you cold?” Nicky asks. It’s properly dark now, and the night air has a bite. 

“Uh,” Joe says, clearly trying to decide how he should answer. 

Without waiting for Joe to answer, Nicky takes his gun from his pocket. Joe’s eyes go almost comically wide, but Nicky pointedly switches on the safety and sticks it down his pants. He takes off his jacket and holds it out to Joe.

“Oh,” Joe says. He doesn’t look afraid anymore, but his eyes are still the size of saucers. He shrugs on the jacket and flashes Nicky another shy smile. “Thanks, Nicky.” 

It occurs to Nicky that this entire thing may be an act on Joe’s part—perhaps he thinks he can seduce Nicky into letting him go. It’s devastatingly close to working. 

Unfortunately, Nicky’s been played many times before. He knows when someone is just a genuine person, and Joe is the real thing. Which is somehow even worse. 

“Tell me something else,” he demands, desperate for Joe to keep talking. 

“Um. I could tell you about Pancake?”

Nicky’s puzzled for just a moment, then it clicks. “Yes, all right.”

“I got her just a couple weeks after I moved to Rome. I didn’t know a single person, didn’t have any friends, just the job at MACRO. I was putting out my trash one night and I heard all of this yowling and hissing. I looked behind the dumpster and there was this kitten with dirty, matted fur, and it was absolutely tiny. It was hissing at a rat that was, shit you not, almost twice as big as it was.” 

Nicky huffs a little laugh.

“Anyway, I just knew that this cat was a badass, so I shooed the rat away and picked up the kitten. She spent the whole night scratching my arms up and almost destroyed my bathroom when I washed her off. But now she’s a spoiled house cat. I’m glad Nile’s looking after her.”

Nicky frowns. “Nile?”

“Yeah, I work with her at MACRO. I mean, you said coworker, so I just assumed?”

Nicky nods. 

“Nile’s American. She moved to Rome almost a year ago. We’re the only ones who do tours in English.” Joe’s voice is fond, which makes something in Nicky’s stomach twist. 

“You like her.” 

“Yeah,” Joe says easily, then his eyebrows raise. “I mean—” he laughs and looks away. “Not. Not like that. Um.” He slides the cuffs of Nicky’s jacket over his hands and looks down at them. “I’m gay,” he says, and looks back up, expression open and anticipating.

Fuck. Nicky bites the inside of his cheek and tries to come up with a response that isn’t asking if Joe would like to go into the cave and fuck on the air mattress.

“Sorry,” Joe says quickly.

“For what?”

"I don’t know, if, if it bothers you, or something.” Joe grimaces.

“Why would it bother me?”

“I don’t know, you just—” Joe sighs. “Maybe you’re a devout Catholic and you think I’m going to hell or something?”

“I did go to an all-boys Catholic school,” Nicky allows. “So trust me when I say it doesn’t bother me.” 

He watches as Joe processes that and bursts out laughing. 

Nicky can’t help grinning just a little himself. Joe must catch sight of Nicky’s expression, and maybe it looks menacing in the lamplight, because the laughter dies in Joe’s throat as he stares, an odd look on his face. An uneasy silence starts to creep in. 

“It’s late,” Nicky announces. A quick glance at his watch tells him it’s true. “You should sleep.”

“Oh, okay,” Joe says. He drains his drink and leaves the cup on the chair as he follows Nicky into the cave.

Sebastien is asleep, legs dangling off his too-small cot. Joe obediently makes for his own makeshift bed. 

He turns to face Nicky. “Uh. Your jacket—”

“Keep it,” Nicky tells him. “It gets cold up here.”

Joe nods. “Okay. Thanks.” 

Nicky forces himself to look away from Joe’s perfect, earnest face. He lets his eyes drop to the shackle and chain running along the edge of the air mattress.

Joe follows Nicky’s gaze. “Oh. Um.” He sits down on the mattress and extends his leg. 

Nicky crouches to chain Joe up with the spare key he carries. Joe bears it with grace, which only increases Nicky’s sense of wretchedness. After everything Joe shared with him, open and guileless, Nicky can’t help but feel like he’s betraying him. 

His fingers brush Joe’s ankle exactly three times, each instance more unbearable than the last. He tells himself it’s less than the punishment he deserves. 

When the shackle snicks shut, Nicky glances at Joe. 

“Night, Nicky,” Joe says, voice soft.

“Night,” Nicky says back. He stands and leaves the cave. He walks down the mountain and spends hours sleeping for twenty-minute increments in his car. 


	4. fool around

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for reading and for commenting, I love hearing from y'all.

The sambuca was a mistake, Joe thinks as he cracks his eyes open. Under normal circumstances, two drinks would be a casual evening’s consumption. In this half-starved, somewhat-dehydrated kidnapping scenario, it means he wakes up slightly hungover. He doesn’t have any particular ailment, just a general feeling of crustiness. 

He tries to fall back to sleep, but only ends up tossing and turning on the air mattress. Frenchie—no, Booker—can apparently tell when Joe gives up, because he heaves himself off his cot and unchains Joe’s ankle.

Wordlessly, feeling like a dog being let out to pee, Joe follows Booker outside to relieve himself. Maybe if he’s good, he’ll get walkies later.

Back in the cave, Joe eats a caprese sandwich on thick ciabatta bread and grapes by the handful, hoping he can eat away this low-grade hangover. He washes it all down with an entire bottle of water while Booker paws through a backpack.

“You play?” Booker asks, holding up a deck of cards. 

“Yeah,” Joe says, surprised but glad for something to do. “A little.” 

Rifle in one hand, cards in the other, Booker nods toward the cave entrance. “Come on, let’s play outside.” 

Joe stands up. His legs brush at his blanket and the leather peeking out from underneath catches his eye, which reminds him that he still has Nicky’s jacket. At some point in the night, Joe shrugged it off, but the morning air is crisp, so he puts it back on, feeling a little self-conscious. Booker either doesn’t notice Joe is wearing his boss’s clothes, or he just doesn’t care.

Outside, they settle into the camp chairs and Booker shuffles the deck. “Poker?”

“Sure,” Joe agrees. He’s not an amazing player, but he can certainly hold his own—and he does, at least in the first game. But after his first win, it’s clear Booker was only gauging his skill, because he wipes the floor with Joe every round after that.

After five games, Joe cries uncle. “Okay, I can’t handle any more defeat at the moment.”

Booker smirks. “You’re not bad, though.” He pours himself some of the leftover sambuca, which was left out by the chairs overnight. 

“Thanks.” Joe sticks his hands into Nicky’s pockets. The sun is reaching its zenith and the warmth on his face is finally making him feel a little better.

Though the food and fresh air have helped with the hangover, the worst after-effect from last night is the embarrassment of having told Nicky so much personal shit, basically unprompted. He particularly wishes he hadn’t mentioned being gay, because, one, there’s no reason whatsoever Nicky should know that, and two, he keeps fixating on Nicky’s comment about Catholic school and wondering if Nicky meant to imply that he himself had lots of gay sex there.

To distract himself from this no good, very bad line of thought, Joe focuses on Booker. He’s sprawled out in the chair and his eyes are shut, but Joe is sure he’s not actually asleep. 

“Do other people call you Booker?” he asks, leaning forward.

Booker responds without opening his eyes. “Some do.”

“Why?” Joe presses, aware that he’s probably pushing his luck. 

“I like to read,” Booker tells him dispassionately.

Joe gives up. The ground they’re on is mostly dirt, and he absently trails a finger through it. He starts to make a pattern, getting a little lost in the effort of creating orderly lines when he looks up and sees Booker staring at him.

“Come with me for a second,” Booker says, and Joe follows him back into the cave, a little wary but mostly puzzled. Booker opens his backpack and takes out a notebook. He flicks through it and rips out a few pages that are written on before handing it to Joe. He unzips another pocket of the backpack and pulls out a pencil.

“You try to stab me with this and you will regret it, a lot, understand?” Booker tells him, an edge to his voice.

Joe blinks. “Yes, I won’t—I wouldn’t do that.” 

Booker hands him the pencil. “Want to go back out?”

Joe nods.

The first thing he does is make three tallies in the first page of the notebook—one for each day he’s been held, including the day in Rome. 

He spends the rest of the afternoon sketching the landscape. Maybe this kidnapping will give him the discipline he needs to actually focus on his own art, instead of just talking about other peoples’.

———

The next day, that silver-lining spirit is gone as Joe realizes how boring it is being held hostage. 

He spends the morning scribbling in the notebook, but the one thing his fingers really itch to draw is a strong profile and broad shoulders and that way lies madness, so he puts down his pencil and gazes up at the sky.

Booker, for his part, seems to tolerate monotony better than anyone Joe has ever known. He does read a bit, but the guy also seems perfectly content to sit on his cot or chair and stare off into space. 

Joe, however, fidgets so much that he does end up getting walkies. Booker takes him on a long stroll through the surrounding area, where hey pass an actual babbling brook. Joe even spots a fish of some kind jumping in the stream. “Whoa, did you see that?”

“What?”

“A fish just like, leapt downstream. Think it was a salmon? Are they spawning now? Are there salmon up here?”

Booker just frowns a little, looking tired and vexed that his plan to tire Joe out with a walk has failed. 

One day five, Booker takes Joe out for his morning piss, as is their routine, but as Joe crunches on an apple, he hears a whistle from outside the cave. Booker whistles back, and soon after Nicky appears. The two meet out of Joe’s earshot and exchange a few words, then Nicky hands Booker something. Booker grabs his backpack leaves as Nicky walks further into the cave. 

Nicky has a large backpack of his own, which turns out to be full of food. He dumps it all into the cooler and glances up at Joe, who is busy telling himself that he’s not excited to see Nicky, he’s just looking forward to something different happening today. That’s all. 

“Where’d Booker go?” he asks.

Nicky perches on the edge of the cot, legs stretched out in front of him, ankles crossed. “Surely you’re not missing his company.”

“No,” Joe agrees easily. “It just seemed like the polite thing to ask.”

Then Nicky smiles, that same restrained, crooked little grin he had last night when he teased Joe about Catholic school, and Joe beams back. 

Nicky ducks his head. He tugs his backpack closer and pulls out a bundle of clothes, which he holds out to Joe.

“If you like,” he says.

With Booker, who was getting comparably ripe, Joe had been able to mostly ignore his own stench, but now that Nicky’s here—and looking _like that_ —he feels self-conscious about the fact that he hasn’t done any sort of personal hygiene in almost a week. 

“I would like,” Joe says, “but is there any way I could—I don’t know, rinse off or something?”

Nicky hums in thought. “If you don’t mind washing in the stream.”

“If it’s good enough for the salmon it’s good enough for me,” he says as he stands. At Nicky’s blank stare, he adds, “Never mind, just a stupid joke.” 

Nicky accepts that without comment and gestures for Joe to lead the way. Carrying Joe’s new clothes, he walks just half a step behind Joe until they reach the stream. He sets the bundle down, takes a seat on a flat-ish rock near the water, and watches Joe with an expression of unhurried expectation.

Clearly, Joe did not think this through. His mind is racing, trying to figure out if he can somehow get decently clean without stripping down in front of Nicky. Getting in the stream fully dressed is technically an option, but it sounds very unpleasant and, more importantly, will probably look really stupid. 

Fuck it. He turns his back to Nicky and shucks off his shirt as he toes off his shoes. He unzips his jeans and pushes everything down in one go, then bends over to take off his putrid socks, something he wishes he’d done when he wasn’t butt-ass naked. 

The weight of Nicky’s attention is always a lot, but right now, it’s about to make him hard. 

Luckily for Joe, the struggle of getting into the water without spearing his foot on a rock is such an unsexy process that it effectively squashes any arousal. Scubbing off days of grime is an ecstatic experience in and of itself. Once he’s as clean as he’s going to get, Joe looks around for a place to dry out. There’s another sizable, semi-flat rock not too far from Nicky’s, which isn’t ideal, but it’s his best bet outside of putting on his new clothes while he’s soaking wet. 

Joe makes his way over and pulls himself up on the rock, starfishing on his back and trying not to think about Nicky’s big hands and slutty earring and illicit sexual experiences with the other altar boys. He bends his legs and lets his knees knock together in an attempt to to block Nicky’s view of his cock, even though he can tell Nicky’s gaze has been very respectfully trained on just the neck-up parts of Joe.

What is wrong with him? Why is he like this? How many years of therapy is he going to need after this over? Rather than contemplate these serious matters, Joe pushes himself up on his forearms and asks about the other thing that’s been weighing on his mind. “Nicky? What’s taking so long?”

Nicky’s face twitches into one of the little micro expressions Joe is starting to become familiar with—this one he recognizes as confusion.

“With the ransom,” he clarifies. 

“Ah.” Nicky’s face clears. “These things usually take time, Joe.”

How many people has Nicky kidnapped, Joe wonders, and is there a support group? 

“Have you—have you talked to any of my family?” he asks instead. 

Nicky doesn’t answer. He leans to pick up the stack of clean clothes. “Let’s go,” he says, not unkindly, but Joe recognizes it for the command it is. 

He maneuvers out of the stream and takes the clothes from Nicky—clean socks and underwear, jeans, loser than he usually wears, but still a decent fit, and a long-sleeved shirt that’s definitely _not_ loose—it’s not too small, but it’s the type of thing he’d wear if he went out looking to score. 

He looks up Nicky, who’s staring at Joe’s chest. 

“I’m sorry,” Nicky says, “about the fit. I guessed.” His neck is red. 

“It’s okay,” Joe tells him. “I don’t mind. Unless…”

“Unless?”

“Unless it looks bad,” he says as innocently as he can.

Nicky is very still. The flush has crept onto his cheeks. “It doesn’t,” he says after several long beats.

“Oh,” Joe says, trying not to sound smug. “Okay. Good.” Vindicated, he collects his dirty clothes and holds them balled in one hand as they walk back to the cave.

They settle into the camp chairs, Joe eating a sandwich while Nicky smokes. Once again, with almost no urging, Joe starts prattling to Nicky, telling him about the worst kind of patrons at the museum and the best place to get North African food in Rome and what it was like going to uni in Germany. 

He knows it’s probably unwise to tell Nicky so much, but the guy is already holding him hostage, so it’s not like he has much to lose, and the story of how he named his cat isn’t exactly a state secret. Besides, Joe likes to monologue and rarely has such a (figuratively) captive audience outside of work. 

Joe approaches it all as an exercise in getting a reaction from Nicky—a huff of laughter, an arched eyebrow, or, best of all, one of those crooked smiles. By the time the sun starts to set, he’s seen them all. 

That night, Nicky locks the shackle around Joe’s ankle and settles into the cot. Joe stays awake late into the night, determined to find out if Nicky snores. He doesn’t. 

Joe wakes up as the pre-dawn light leaks in from the cave entrance. He hears whispers, and he cranes his head to watch as Nicky accepts something from Booker and leaves, backpack slung over his shoulder. 

He’s not disappointed, he tells himself as he rolls over and falls back asleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to SBee who called the card-playing back in chapter 2! :D
> 
> You can also catch me on [Tumblr](https://dreamtiwasanarchitect.tumblr.com/).


	5. fever dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please enjoy some tropes with your tropes

Nicky feels like he’s waging war on the old house, and the house appears to be winning. The electricity itself works, but after nearly twenty years of disuse, most of the appliances don’t. Mystifyingly, the place only has half the furniture he remembers. He manages to fix the broken water heater, but he has to wash the bed’s musty sheets by hand and hope they’ll dry hanging out in the afternoon sun. 

Despite its state of general disrepair, the house is full of reminders of Nicky’s childhood—pencil scratches to track his growth on the doorframe, the handkerchief shoved under the uneven table leg because his mother knew no other way to fix it, a dusty old stuffed animal he had since before he remembered recovered under the couch. It knifes at him, the happy little life he lived for such a short period of time before it all fell apart. 

The stovetop still functions, so he heats water and makes himself some shitty instant coffee while he waits for his phone to ring. It tastes terrible, but there’s something satisfyingly punishing about it. 

When the screen lights up with Copley’s name, he answers immediately. They’ve had Joe for more than a week, and while Copley has successfully convinced al-Kaysani’s head of security of this, there’s been no further update. 

“Well?” 

“Hello, Nico.”

Nicky just waits, uninterested in small talk. 

There’s a rustling sound from the other end of the line, then Copley gives up on any polite response. “We’ve heard back from al-Kaysani’s people. He’s made a counteroffer.”

Nicky can’t believe what he’s hearing. “A _counteroffer_?” he hisses.

“Yes, twenty-five million,” Copley says, matter-of-fact.

“That is—that is outrageous. This is their son.” His voice is shaking. Not to mention, it’s half of their original asking price. 

“I’m sure they’ll go higher,” Copley assures him calmly. “This happens, Nico. Just tell your uncle the new offer, and we’ll make a counter of our own, yes?”

“Right,” he says tightly. “Okay, yes. I’ll call you back very soon.” 

“Cheers.”

Nicky hangs up and wants to hit something. A counteroffer? All he can think about is Joe’s eyes—wide like saucers and afraid, red-rimmed from crying, sparking with joy and mischief—and he wonders how anyone who knows Joe—much less his family—could stand to negotiate rather than immediately do whatever was necessary to spare him pain? 

Joe can never hear about this, he thinks. He doesn’t deserve to know that his father was willing to barter with his life. 

Nicky has a smoke and forces himself into something resembling a state of calm before he picks up his phone again. 

“Nico,” Matteo says when he picks up. “Tell me, are we rich yet?” 

His uncle is already one of the wealthiest men in Rome, after nearly four decades of successful criminal activity, but Nicky doesn’t press the issue. “They have made a counteroffer,” he says, trying to sound unemotional about it.

Matteo swears. “A fucking counteroffer? How much?”

“Twenty-five.”

He swears again. “That’s a fucking insult. We should send their boy back to them in a body bag.”

Nicky’s fingers clench around the phone. From the first night he left Joe at the cave with Sebastien, he swore to himself Joe was getting home safe and unharmed. He’s not about to let his uncle’s pride get in the way of keeping his own promise, but his uncle doesn’t need to know that.

“It is an insult,” Nicky agrees. “But they will go higher. We only need to respond.”

“We should respond by sending them a body part.”

The hairs on the back of Nicky’s neck stand up, almost as if his hackles raise. A terrible vision of himself sawing off one of Joe’s fingers floats behind his eyes. Blood, screaming, always undesirable, but the pain in Joe’s eyes—unlivable. 

“If they’re willing to barter, I’m not sure it will make a difference,” he says, all forced calm and reason. “It is not as if they don’t believe we have him.” 

For a few moments, it’s quiet on the other end of the line. Finally, Matteo sighs. “Thirty-five. Final offer. It’s a small price to pay for their son’s life.” 

“All right,” Nicky says. “I will keep you informed.” 

“Thank you, Nico.” 

The call ends and Nicky lets out a shaky breath before calling Copley back. 

———  
  
The next day, Nicky is wiping down the dusty cookware, most of it somehow spared whatever sacking the house underwent in the last twenty-odd years, when his phone vibrates. He expects Copley and prays for good news, but it’s Sebastien, calling from the burner phone he was only to use in an extreme emergency.

Nicky’s stomach sinks, already imaging a thousand nightmare scenarios. 

“What’s happened?” he asks immediately.

“Joe’s sick,” Sebastien says. “He started feeling feverish yesterday, and I think it’s worse now.”

“He’s responsive?”

“Yeah, just not…” 

“Not what?” Nicky demands.

“Just not himself,” Sebastien says finally. Nicky, swallows, thinks of Joe’s friendly chatter and big smiles, all of it given so freely, and he understands what Sebastien means.

“All right,” he says as he throws on his shoes and grabs his keys. “Keep him hydrated. I’m coming.” He hangs up and locks the house behind him. 

From the village, it’s only a five-minute drive to the base of the mountain. Staying in the old house was worth it for this, as much as it pains Nicky to walk around on the creaking floors and hear the echoes of old ghosts. He books it up the mountain and doesn’t give any signal that he’s arrived before running into the cave.

Joe is curled on his mattress, the blanket tucked tightly around him. He looks small, Nicky thinks. Sebastien is crouched nearby, holding a half-empty water bottle. He looks up at Nicky, and seeing his usually unflappable friend worried only makes Nicky’s heart pound faster.

Nicky lowers himself next to Sebastien and touches Joe’s shoulder. He’s wearing Nicky’s jacket, which stokes some sort of animal satisfaction—totally unhelpful in this situation and completely inappropriate generally—in Nicky’s chest. 

“Joe,” he says softly, and Joe squints up at him, face pained. Nicky presses the back of his hand to Joe’s forehead. He’s burning with fever, just like Sebastien said.

Nicky bites the inside of his cheek, but his mind’s already made up.

“Joe, we’re going to move you, all right?”

Joe’s face is still scrunched, but he nods. “Okay.”

“Come on,” Nicky mutters to Sebastien, switched back to Italian. “You get his legs. Keep him wrapped up.”

“Where exactly are we moving him?”

“To my car.” 

Sebastien’s eyebrows shoot up into his forehead, but Nicky is already lifting Joe’s upper body as gently as he can manage. 

With Sebastien supporting Joe’s lower half, they carry him from the cave and descend the mountain. At first Nicky is torn between prioritizing speed or Joe’s comfort, but he quickly decides getting Joe medical attention in a timely manner is more important than sparing him the occasional jostle. Joe seems to fade in and out of a doze the entire time, though at one point he blinks his eyes open and turns his hot face to look at Nicky, his curls brushing against Nicky’s chin. 

“Nicky,” he says, “what’s happening?”

“We’re getting you help,” Nicky tells him. “Just rest.”

They lay Joe across the backseat of Nicky’s car. Sebastien hops into the passenger seat and Nicky peels off. Minutes later, he pulls up to Sebastien’s truck, parked on the outskirts of someone’s goat pen. 

“Get a doctor,” Nicky says, words low and fast. “Anyone on our payroll. Actually—Frattarolli. Get him.” 

“Okay,” Sebastien says. He glances back at Joe. “Are you taking him to—”

“Yes,” Nicky says shortly.

“Okay. I’ll get the doctor and meet you there.” Sebastien steps out of the Nicky’s car and into his own, and they each take off in separate directions.

Nicky parks as close as he can to the house. He runs ahead to unlock it before doubling back to the car. 

“Joe,” he says, wrapping a hand around his ankle. “Can you walk a little ways?” 

Joe nods and unfurls himself from his fetal position. He climbs out of the backseat and Nicky wraps an arm around his waist, though they’re only steps away from the door. Once inside, Nicky leads Joe directly to the bedroom. He sits Joe on the bed and tugs the cave blanket away, letting it fall on the floor. He takes off Joe’s shoes and glances up at him. 

“Will you be more comfortable without the jacket? I can light a fire,” Nicky tells him.

“Okay,” Joe says, and lets the jacket fall on top of the blanket. 

“Get under the covers,” Nicky urges, and Joe does. Nicky starts a fire quickly—he had one burning last night, so half the work is already done—and hurries to the kitchen. He returns with a glass of water, which he holds out to Joe.

Joe pokes only his hand out from the bedding, as if to minimize his exposure to room-temperature air. 

“Here,” Nicky says, and brings the glass straight to Joe’s lips. He doesn’t set it down until Joe has drained it. 

Joe’s eyes are dull, and the sight of it makes Nicky ache with a throbbing anxiousness. “Does anything hurt in particular?” he asks. “Your stomach, or your throat?”

Joe shakes his head. “Just aches. All over.”

“A doctor is coming,” Nicky says. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

Joe shakes his head again.

Nicky doesn’t know what to do—leaving Joe alone seems unwise, but hovering over him like this feels intrusive, and it only underscores how useless he is right now. 

“You can sit by me?” Joe asks.

Nicky does, and maybe Joe just rolls naturally toward the dip Nicky makes in the bed, or maybe he actually shifts closer to Nicky on purpose. Nicky wants to reach out and stroke his curls, but he clasps his hands in his lap instead. They wait like that until there’s a knock at the front door.

Sebastien is there with Dr. Frattarolli at his side. The doctor is a balding man with a reputation for keeping his cool and keeping his mouth shut. Nicky beckons them in and leads the doctor to the bedroom while Sebastien waits in the kitchen. 

In silence, Frattarolli gets straight to work. He takes Joe’s temperature, listens to his heart, checks his blood pressure, and feels for his pulse, taking the necessary tools out of his satchel as he goes.

“What symptoms are you experiencing?” he asks in Italian.

Joe looks over to Nicky.

“He says he hasn’t had any,” Nicky says.

The doctor frowns. “And how long has he been running a fever?”

“A little over a day.”

Frattarolli gestures to indicate he’s finished with his examination. Nicky brings him back into the kitchen, where Sebastien has somehow found a dusty bottle of brandy and fixed himself a drink.

“Tell us,” Nicky commands.

“He has a very high fever,” Frattarolli says. “More than forty degrees.” 

Sebastien curses under his breath and drains half his glass. 

“What’s wrong?” Nicky asks.

“My best guess is that it’s something viral and it may run its course. But it could be indicative of another problem or underlying condition. Without better equipment, I can’t run any of the tests I usually would. I could only check his vitals. Nothing in particular is wrong, apart from the fever.” 

Nicky huffs. “So we just wait?”

“No,” Frattarolli says. “It’s a very high fever. If it doesn’t drop tomorrow, he should go to a hospital.”  
  
“You think that’s an option for us, hm?” Nicky demands. “Give him something that will help.”

“If it’s a virus, there’s nothing I can give him that will help. You want to give him something? Right now, paracetamol is your best bet.”

“Fuck,” Nicky swears, and throws one of the pans left out from this morning against the wall. “Do they give any idiot a medical degree?”

Frattarolli is clearly offended but too afraid to object. He clears his throat. “I can only give you my professional opinion, Mr. di Genova,” he says stiffly. “And my opinion is that the man in that room may soon need more medical attention than a home visit can offer.” 

Nicky glares at him until Sebastien intervenes.

“Come on, doctor,” he says. “I’ll take you home.” 

From the kitchen window, Nicky watches them drive away, fighting a feeling of hopelessness. He goes back into the bedroom and Joe peeks out from underneath the comforter. 

“Am I dying?” he asks weakly. 

Nicky can tell it’s mean to be a joke, but he doesn’t find it particularly funny at the moment. “No,” he tells him firmly.

“Okay.” Joe shivers.

“You’re still cold?” Nicky says desperately, wondering if he can scrounge up any more blankets. 

Joe nods. “Can you—”

“What?” Nicky is prepared to do anything.

“Just—stay with me,” Joe says. He sounds so tired, and he still looks so small. 

Without hesitating, Nicky climbs onto the bed. Joe sighs and lets his head drop against Nicky’s shoulder, his hot skin like a brand. Nicky rubs up and down his arm. Even through the covers, he’s radiating heat.

If Joe isn’t well tomorrow, he’s not sure what he’s going to do. 

“Sleep,” Nicky whispers, and hopes that while Joe does, his fever breaks. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How are we doing? I love to hear what you think! You can also always catch me on [Tumblr](https://dreamtiwasanarchitect.tumblr.com/).


	6. bed head

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're earning that E rating today babeeey

Joe wakes up feeling like he’s run five consecutive marathons, but he’s no longer freezing. He feels sticky and rank, and he realizes he must have sweat out his fever in the night.

He looks around, taking in all of the details of his new location that he missed last night. There are surprisingly few—a window across the room with some old, lacy curtains, an ancient-looking dresser against the opposite wall, but besides the fireplace, there’s no other furniture or decor in the room. The bed itself is a little lumpy but still comfortable, and a huge improvement on the air mattress. Joe thinks the pillows and duvet might be stuffed with feathers. 

But the most interesting thing in the room is Nicky, who’s asleep across from him, on top of the covers. One of Nicky’s hands is curled under his chin and the other is reached out toward Joe. His hair is falling over his eyes, and his face, lax with sleep, has a loveliness that’s almost otherworldly. 

Joe tries to keep very still as he rolls more fully onto his side to better observe Nicky, but even that tiny movement is enough to make Nicky twitch into sudden wakefulness. His peaceful expression immediately shifts into one of concern when he looks at Joe. 

“Joe,” he says, voice rasping as he sits up. “How are you?”

“Better,” Joe says truthfully. 

Nicky doesn’t look relieved. He presses the back of his hand to Joe’s forehead—and Joe can’t help startling a little at the sudden contact—but he lets out a long breath when he feels what Joe already knows—the fever’s broken.

“See? Better,” Joe says as Nicky’s hand falls away.

“You’re not burning up, at least,” Nicky allows. 

“I feel okay,” Joe tells him. “Just tired.” 

“Do you think you can eat?” 

Joe nods. Nicky stands and extends his hand. He pulls Joe out of bed and leads him into a little kitchen with some intensely retro decor. It feels like Joe’s stepped back in time to the late 70s. 

Nicky gestures for him to sit at one of the two chairs around a small, rickety-looking table, so he does. The table is bare except for a tumbler half-full of some sort of liquor. 

Joe watches sleepily as Nicky moves around the kitchen. Since Nicky usually walks behind him, he’s never gotten such a good view of Nicky’s ass. It’s exquisite. 

After several minutes, Nicky serves him a steaming bowl of oatmeal topped with berries and a few soft-boiled eggs on the side. 

“Wow,” Joe remarks. “Hot food. It’s my lucky day. I don’t suppose there’s coffee?”

“Just the instant kind.”

Joe grimaces. “Never mind.”

Nicky puts a glass of water in front of him. “You need to stay hydrated,” he orders. He leans against the counter, eyes fixed on Joe. 

Joe cleans his plate and finishes his water under Nicky’s watchful eye. “So, is it overly optimistic of me to think this place has indoor plumbing?”

“You want to shower,” Nicky says.

“Badly.”

Nicky shows him to the bathroom and pulls a towel from the cupboard beneath the sink. He leaves, but as he does he pushes the door completely open. Joe infers that he’s not allowed to shut it, which makes sense, he guesses, because of the whole hostage thing that’s becoming increasingly easy to forget about. 

He takes a long, glorious shower, helping himself to the travel-sized body wash and shampoo, even though the shampoo probably wasn’t meant for hair like his. It all smells like Nicky, clean amber and teakwood.

When he steps out of the shower, Joe paws through the cabinets. He finds an electric razor that he uses to shave his burgeoning beard back down to stubble. After almost two weeks of severely lapsed dental hygiene, he decides he doesn’t care how gross it is to use someone else’s toothbrush and squeezes out some toothpaste. As he’s scrubbing the furry sensation from his teeth, towel wrapped around his waist, there’s a knock on the door frame.

“I have fresh clothes,” Nicky says. Maybe Joe’s imagining it, but he thinks he sees Nicky’s eyes linger on his pecs. Either way, he doesn’t comment on the fact that Joe is using his toothbrush. 

Joe spits and takes the pile of clothes from him. The outfit is similar to the one Nicky gave him before, though this time it’s soft joggers instead of jeans. 

Once he’s dressed, Joe naps for an indeterminate period of time on the hideous couch. (It’s velour, patterned with autumnal leaves.) When he wakes up, he looks for Nicky on instinct. He sits up and spots him in the kitchen, chopping away at something.

“Time for dinner already?” Joe asks as he joins him. 

“It will be, by the time this is done,” Nicky says. He glances at his watch. “Or close enough.” 

Joe smiles and sits down at the table. “I could eat,” he says. “What’s on the menu?”

“Penne alla vodka. This oven doesn’t work, so we are limited to what can be made on the stovetop.” Nicky sounds a little annoyed about it. 

“This whole place looks pretty much frozen in time,” Joe observes.

“It is. No one has lived here in twenty years.” 

Joe waits for Nicky to elaborate, but he doesn’t. He decides to try his luck. “Was—was this your house?”

Nicky, who has moved on to mincing garlic, pauses. Joe starts to suspect he’s not going to get an answer, but then—“As a boy, yes,” Nicky says finally.

Joe wants to know more, but he senses he’s pried enough (at least for now). He watches Nicky work for awhile before he says, “You seem like you know what you’re doing in the kitchen. I can’t cook for shit.”

“No?”

“No. I’m single-handedly keeping all the takeout places in my neighborhood in business.” 

Nicky glances at him over his shoulder, the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. “I’m sure they appreciate it.”

“Still. Where’d you learn your way around a chef’s knife?”

“My mother taught me when I was young,” Nicky says. 

The image of little Nicky cooking with his mother—presumably in this very kitchen—tugs at Joe’s heart. Not for the first time, he wonders how a man like Nicky ended up kidnapping people for a living.

“That’s really nice,” Joe says. “My mom can’t cook. We’ve always had, you know…people.” The minute it’s left his mouth, Joe inwardly cringes. The only thing worse than being some rich asshole is reminding people you’re a rich asshole. 

Nicky just hums in response as he drains the pasta. He tosses it in the sauce, plates it, and sits down across from Joe. He doesn’t waste any time before digging in, and Joe follows suit. It’s delicious. 

“Wow. This is…really fucking good,” he says. It earns him a crooked grin from Nicky and he decides he wants more, so he says, “Seriously, Nicky, it might be better than sex.”

Nicky just raises his eyebrows a fraction. 

“Okay, it’s better than like, certain, specific instances of sex that I’ve had,” Joe amends, and Nicky’s smile widens, flashing all his white teeth. 

“Perhaps one day you’ll have a pasta dish that puts them all to shame,” Nicky says. He’s gone faintly pink.

“Maybe,” Joe allows, trying not to think about having a certain, specific instance of sex with Nicky. He’s convinced it would be amazing. Nicky is a very considerate kidnapper, so it must stand to reason he’s a considerate lover.

He’s decided trying to keep himself from thirsting after Nicky is pointless. Nicky is beautiful. Nicky is nice to him, or at least as nice as a captor could be. He doesn’t know when he started thinking so, but he doesn’t believe Nicky actually masterminded this kidnapping. He knows Nicky doesn’t want to hurt him. He’s following orders, fallen in with the wrong crowd. Not that it makes it okay, any of this, but it helps Joe rationalize the way he’s gone crazy with lust. Besides, it’s not like he has any better way to pass his time right now. 

When they’re finished eating, Joe watches, puzzled, as Nicky pulls a few blankets from a closet and begins to make up the couch. 

“Is Booker coming?” 

Nicky looks over to him. “What?”

“You’re making up the couch.” 

“Yes, for me.”

Joe shakes his head. “We can share. We shared last night.”

“That was different. You were ill.” 

“Yeah, and now I’m better and you don’t have to lay next to me while I sweat out my fever. It’ll be a significantly more enjoyable experience.” His own face feels a little hot after he says that, but he tries to play it off. 

Nicky’s lips twitch, but he keeps stuffing a sheet around the couch cushions. 

“Come on, Nicky, I napped on that couch and I think it almost put my back out.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Joe feels a little desperate and incredibly insane when he says, “But out here, how will you keep an eye on me?” 

Does he mean that Nicky needs to make sure he doesn’t relapse into illness, or does he mean that Nicky needs to make sure he doesn’t try to escape? He doesn’t know—maybe both, whichever convinces Nicky.

Nicky sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. “All right,” he says.

In the bedroom, tension thrums between them. Joe sits on the bed and watches as Nicky unbuttons his shirt, stripping down to just a white undershirt. He takes off his jeans and opens the dresser. Joe can’t take his eyes off Nicky’s perfect ass and thick thighs. 

Nicky turns around, a pair of sweats in hand, and sees Joe staring. He cheeks turn pink again. It’s—sweet.

“Nicky,” Joe says helplessly.

Nicky just looks back at him, only one or two feet away, his stormy eyes wide. 

“Please don’t put on those pants,” Joe manages. He’s crazy for what he’s about to say, but he knows Nicky is thinking it too, so it probably won’t result in him getting punched in the face or something.

He swallows, throat dry. “Nicky, I want you.” 

“Joe, I—it’s not a good idea.”

“No,” Joe agrees. “It’s not. You’re right. I still want you.”

“Joe.” Nicky runs a hand through his hair again, which Joe is beginning to recognize as one of his tells. “I—nothing will change. It can’t.”

“I understand. I’m not trying to fuck my way out of being kidnapped.”

Nicky’s jaw clenches.

“But,” he continues, “you want me, too, don’t you?” 

“Joe,” Nicky says again, almost pleading. “That—that doesn’t matter.”

“It kinda matters to me,” Joe says. “Since _I_ want _you_.” 

“You keep saying that—”

“—because it’s true—”

“—but what exactly are you asking for? Do you know?”

Joe bristles. “Yes, I know. What does that even—yes, I want to touch your body and I want you to touch my body. Hands, mouths, whatever.”

For a moment, Nicky is very still. “Fuck,” he says, and surges forward. He moves so fast that Joe almost flinches away, but the next second Nicky drops to his knees. 

“You said mouths,” Nicky says, staring up at Joe, the intensity of his gaze dialed up by about a thousand percent.

Joe blinks. “Um. Yeah. I did.” His voice comes out hoarse.

One of Nicky’s hands curls around his calf and squeezes. “Take off your pants.” Nicky’s hand falls away to give him space. Joe shoves his pants and underwear down to his ankles and kicks free of them. 

“I’m going to suck you off,” Nicky tells him, face serious.

Joe just gapes, mouth open, until he realizes that Nicky is waiting for him to agree. “Yes, please, do that,” Joe says quickly. 

Nicky leans in and licks him from root to tip. Joe grabs at the comforter, knuckles turning white. He’s not sure what’s better—the sight of Nicky on his knees for him like this, or the feel of his hot, perfect tongue against Joe’s cock. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he chants under his breath. 

After a few minutes of teasing, Nicky swallows him down to the base, his nose rubbing against Joe’s pelvis. He’s very, very good at this. Nile was right about the earrings, Joe thinks wildly. Fucking slutty earrings. 

He lets his hips rock forward a little, testing the waters. Nicky doesn’t seem to mind. Joe releases his death grip on the bedding and threads his fingers through Nicky’s hair, careful not to tug. Nicky’s eyes flick up to meet his as he gives Joe’s cock an especially long, hard suck. His pupils are blown wide, full of something needy and a little dark.

Joe’s hands fist around the silky strands. Watching closely for Nicky’s reaction, he gives his hair a deliberate yank. 

For a man who’s usually damn near unreadable, Nicky’s reaction to having his hair pulled is almost explosive. He moans around Joe’s cock, and Joe sees him rubbing himself through his underwear. 

“Fuck, Nicky, that’s so hot,” he gasps. “You’re so hot.” Nicky just keeps sucking like it’s his job, throat open for Joe to fuck his hips into. 

“I’m close,” Joe warns him. Nicky doesn’t make any move to pull away.

Joe comes in his mouth and lowers himself down onto his elbows, propped up just enough to watch Nicky plunge his hand down his underwear and fist around his cock. His head’s tipped back, exposing the long, pale column of his throat, and his mouth forms silent cries. After a few strokes, he comes all over his shirt.

“Fuck, Nicky,” Joe says as he flops back on the bed, feeling boneless. He rolls on to his side, watching as Nicky pulls off the stained undershirt and uses it to wipe away any stray splashes of come. 

Nicky’s stomach is planes of lean muscle with just a little softness around his hips and lower belly. Joe wants to kiss every inch of it, to lick down that trail of hair and return the favor Nicky has paid him. And that’s just the beginning of a very extensive list. 

Nicky tosses Joe his underwear from the floor. He shimmies back into them and moves over to make space for Nicky.

“That was—amazing,” Joe says as Nicky settles next to him. 

Nicky smiles, almost shy, which makes Joe want to kiss him. “Better than the pasta?” 

Joe laughs. “Way, way better than the pasta. Only point of critique is that I didn’t really get to touch you.” He trails a hand down Nicky’s side, touch light, still a little unsure of what’s allowed, though it’s starting to feel like anything goes. 

Nicky reaches up to stroke his hair, which makes Joe’s stomach flip. “Later. You still need rest.” 

“Fine,” Joe says, because that orgasm did take a lot out of him. He lets his eyes drift shut. “Night.”

“Goodnight,” Nicky tells him, and he falls asleep to the soothing sensation of Nicky’s fingers playing with his curls. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your comments help motivate me, a oneshot writer, to keep at this 20k+ word monstrosity! 
> 
> You can find me on [Tumblr](https://dreamtiwasanarchitect.tumblr.com/) here.


	7. after glow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm stuck in a massive snowstorm while I have a huge case of the Mondays, but I've been dying to share this bit, so here we go!

Nicky is usually a light sleeper, drifting in and out of rest in short bursts, but when he opens his eyes, he immediately knows he’s been in a deep slumber for far more hours than normal. His general sense of unease on waking sharpens as he remembers exactly what he did last night.

He didn’t secure Joe to the bed before he went to sleep, which was very stupid of him, especially given how deeply he’d slept. But he hadn’t been able to do it—Joe had looked so peaceful and trusting as he drifted off, and Nicky couldn’t stand to think of his face falling in disappointment or betrayal as he was tied up, once again, like an animal. 

Luckily, it wasn’t necessary. Joe is still in bed, having moved in the night to spoon Nicky from behind. One of his arms is wrapped around Nicky’s chest, and he’s even got a leg between Nicky’s. 

Nicky sighs, wondering just how terribly he’s fucked things up. He never wanted to hurt Joe, but he hadn’t planned on being quite _this_ accommodating. 

In addition to feeling like an idiot, he also feels like an enormous creep. Joe said he wanted it—he begged for it, even—and Nicky believed him, but what are the odds Joe won’t regret the entire thing when he’s back to his real life? 

Nicky threads his fingers through the hand Joe has splayed over his front and tries to imagine that this is normal, that they met in a bar or in a cafe and they’re regular lovers, not a mobster and the man he’s ransoming. In his sleep, Joe nuzzles his face into Nicky’s neck, seemingly unburdened with such concerns.

“Mmph,” Joe says, apparently less asleep than Nicky thought. “Morning.” His lips brush Nicky’s neck, the words low and gravelly. 

Nicky rolls to face him. Joe looks—satisfied. He cracks an eye open and grins at Nicky. “It’s later,” he says.

“What?”

“Last night, you said I could touch you later.” 

Nicky hesitates for a moment, but he’s powerless against Joe’s charming persistence. “I did.” 

“And I’ve come to think of you as a man of your word.”

Well, he’s not wrong. “I am,” Nicky says. 

Joe grins and pushes him onto his back. He kisses Nicky from his neck to his belly, and Nicky lets Joe touch him everywhere, hands mapping over his shoulders, his clavicle, his hips. Joe takes an interest in Nicky’s growing erection, but there’s something else Nicky wants more right now. He pulls Joe up before he can get Nicky’s underwear off.

Joe looks a little confused, but Nicky doesn’t bother with apologies, just pushes his fingers into those perfect fucking curls and brings Joe in for a kiss.

Joe makes a small, surprised sound, but the next second his mouth opens, and Nicky slides his tongue in, kissing with a kind of fervor he hasn’t felt since he was a teenager. Joe’s hands keep stroking up and down Nicky’s side, and soon they’re grinding their hips together. At some point, they get Joe’s shirt off, and though they’re too close for Nicky to get a good look at Joe’s chest, the image of those perfect pecs and abs has been seared into his brain every since Joe stripped down to wash in the stream.

“Nicky,” Joe gasps when they pull apart to catch their breath.

Nicky tries to control his panting. “Tell me what you want.”

“Anything,” Joe says quickly.

“Then tell me what you want most.”

Joe bites his lip. “You inside me. Or to be inside you.” 

Both possibilities make Nicky’s cock twitch and leak inside his underwear, but— “I don’t—there’s nothing here, for that,” he admits.

Joe smirks a little. “You’re Italian, you can’t tell me you don’t have olive oil.”

“I don’t have _condoms_.”

Joe looks like he’s about to say he doesn’t care, and while Nicky isn’t particularly concerned for himself, he’s had a few less-than-safe encounters and hasn’t been tested since. He’s not about to compound the guilt he feels for fucking Joe, his prisoner, with the possibility of giving him an STD. 

“You could fuck my thighs,” Nicky offers, hoping it’s an adequate consolation prize. 

Joe’s eyes go wide. “Yes, okay, that works.” 

Nicky can’t help his grin as he rolls on to his belly. Joe pulls down his underwear and runs his hand over Nicky’s ass, stroking and kneading.

“Your ass is fucking art, Nicky,” Joe says as he parts Nicky’s cheeks. Nicky grinds his cock against the bed, wishing he’d been more optimistic about his chances of getting laid on his homecoming. 

“Can I—” Joe starts to ask, but then he cuts himself off, and Nicky is about to demand he finish his question when he feels Joe’s tongue swipe between his cheeks. He curses as his entire body spasms.

“Is—is that okay? Do you like it?” 

“Yes,” Nicky hisses. “Fuck.” It’s not something he often gets, especially since it’s the sort of act that most casual sexual partners aren’t interested in performing, but Nicky loves being eaten out, relishes the filthiness of someone’s tongue _there_.

And of course Joe is incredibly skilled at it. Nicky gets a hand wrapped around his cock and alternates between fucking into his fist and pushing back against Joe’s tongue. Before long, he comes into his hand. 

“Here,” he says breathlessly, once his brain has stopped whiting out. He reaches back to smear his come between his thighs as best he can. It’s an awkward angle, but Joe helps, and soon Nicky feels Joe move over him, hands at either side of Nicky’s ribs, holding his weight as his cock slides between Nicky’s clenched, messy thighs.

“Fuck, Nicky,” Joe groans. “This—fuck. I’ve been thinking about this ever since you told me about what a slut you were in Catholic school.”

Nicky gasps out a surprised, delighted laugh as his spent cock twitches. “I never—I never told you that.”

“You fucking implied it,” Joe says, and bites at his shoulder.

“You’re right,” Nicky admits. “I did. I was.”

Joe’s breath is coming in heavy pants against Nicky’s neck. “You were what?”

“A slut,” Nicky hisses, desire coiling deep in his stomach.

“Fuck,” Joe moans, drawing out the word as he comes all over Nicky’s thighs. He rolls off to Nicky’s side, one arm draped over his eyes, chest rising and falling rapidly.

Nicky pushes up to his elbows and waits. After a few moments, Joe peeks out at him from under his arm. “Holy shit,” he says, laughing a little. 

Nicky grins back. 

———

The sound of the front door slamming open jolts Nicky awake. Joe slumbers on, but Nicky grabs his piece from where it’s stashed under the bed and moves quietly out of the room.

He runs into a wild-eyed Sebastien in the kitchen and lowers his gun.

Sebastien drops his own gun. “Nico! Is everything okay?”

“Yes, yes, what is it?” Nicky’s brain is scrambling a little, trying to make the shift from preparing to defend against an intruder to navigating what has the potential to be a very awkward situation.

“You haven’t answered your phone,” Sebastien says, sounding equal parts annoyed and bewildered, and Nicky is reminded that he’s only wearing underwear. “Copley called me, he said he couldn’t get in touch with you.”

“Copley called you,” Nicky repeats. It’s as if all the sex has liquefied his brain.

“ _Yes_ , Nico. The al-Kaysanis agreed to the ransom late yesterday—we need to set up an exchange. Is Joe all right?” 

“I told you he was better,” Nicky says, trying not to sound petulant. Yesterday, while Joe was showering, he’d sent off a quick text to Sebastien letting him know Joe’s fever had broken and to wait to hear from him.

Sebastien ignores him and barrels into the bedroom, then stops in his tracks at the scene in front of him. 

The entire room smells like their fucking. They made an attempt to clean up between rounds, but there wasn’t a second set of sheets, and eventually they’d just resigned themselves to sleeping in multiple wet spots. 

If that weren’t incriminating enough, there are clothes scattered around the floor, and one of Joe’s bare legs is poking out from beneath the duvet while he sleeps on his stomach. 

Sebastien turns to look at him, jaw dropped. “Nico, what—”

“Come on,” Nicky says. He swipes a pair of pants from the floor at random, then takes Sebastien’s arm and pulls him out of the bedroom before he wakes Joe. He shuts the door behind them and throws on the pants before sitting down at the table. After another minute of blank staring, Sebastien joins him.

“What,” he says, “the fuck.”

Nicky has no response. What can he say? That he’s noticed how handsome Joe is since he first laid eyes on him, and that the man has an equally beautiful heart? That Joe asked for it and he wanted it so badly himself that he abandoned all his senses? That sucking Joe’s cock—something he only intended to do once, just to take the edge off—proved addictive? 

“I know,” Nicky says finally. “I know, I _know_.” 

He knew it was a bad idea last night, but looking at Sebastien’s face, he realizes exactly how stupid he’s been. Joe may have wanted it, may have explicitly asked for it, but Nicky was the one with the power, the one in control. He gave in, and the worst part is he knows that he’ll do it again. The moment Sebastien leaves, he’ll give in to the gnawing desire, not just to fuck Joe, but to lie next to him and pretend that he could actually be that close to another person. 

For a moment, Sebastien looks like he’s going to yell at him, but then he seems to deflate. When he speaks, his voice is strained. “Okay. Well. You still need to call Copley.”

“Text him,” Nicky says, because his phone is in the dresser and he’s not about to go back into the bedroom at this particular moment. He tries to speak calmly, like he isn’t equally ashamed of himself and afraid to say goodbye to Joe. He’s still the one in charge here. If he tells himself that enough, he’ll have to start believing it. 

“Tell him we do the exchange day after tomorrow. He and I will meet with whoever al-Kaysani’s sending.” His throat tightens, but he presses on. “Then we’ll tell them where they can get Joe.” 

“Okay,” Sebastien says, and he taps out the message. “Time?”

“We’ll do the exchange at noon. You can wait here, with Joe. I’ll come back for you and we can drop him off at two.” Nicky’s stomach is in knots. 

“Okay,” Sebastien repeats. “Done.” 

For a wild second, Nicky considers asking if Sebastien has a condom on him, or if he’d be amenable to picking some up, but his better judgement quickly overrides that idea. “Come back day after tomorrow, eleven,” Nicky tells him.

“You got it, boss,” Sebastien says. He stands up and hesitates. “Nico…”

“I _know_ ,” Nicky says again.

“Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

Nicky waits until he hears the door close and lock behind Sebastien before crawling back into bed with Joe, whose octopus limbs immediately wrap around him.

Just one more day, he thinks desperately.

———

They spend the next day like they spent the last, getting each other off (almost) every way they can think of, with Nicky cooking for them in between. He tries not to think about tomorrow, and continues to indulge in the fantasy where this is his life, not just a vile job he’s carrying out for his uncle. 

As the sky darkens, Nicky sits up against the headboard and Joe climbs into his lap, his back pressed to Nicky’s front. Nicky plays with his cock while Joe rhapsodizes about Nicky’s big hands and think fingers, grinding back against Nicky until they both come. 

They sink into the bed, Joe’s head against Nicky’s shoulder. Nicky’s hands gravitate to Joe’s curls. Now that he has permission to touch, he hasn’t been able to stop.

“If you could be anything, absolutely anything in the world, what would you be?” Joe asks. Even between (and during) rounds of sex, he’s chatty. In someone else, Nicky might find it annoying, but in Joe, it’s endearing. 

Nicky huffs. “I don’t know.” He pauses. “Perhaps a baker.”

Joe laughs. “A baker? Really?”

“Why is that so funny?”

Joe tilts his head to peer up at him. “It’s just, um, a little different than…your current occupation.”

Nicky’s heart sinks at the reminder of their situation, and, more broadly, who he really is. He presses a kiss to Joe’s shoulder and tries to submerge himself back into the make-believe version of his life. “What about you?”

“An artist,” Joe says promptly. “I’d love to have someone talking to tourists about my work.” 

“What is stopping you?”

“A guy’s gotta eat,” Joe says. “And work keeps me from really devoting myself to it full-time like I should if I wanted to get anywhere.

“Your father is a billionaire,” Nicky says, confused.

“Yeah, but _I’m_ not.” Joe cranes his neck to glance at Nicky again. “I got handed a list of parentally-approved professions at a young age. Being an artist wasn’t one of them. So. No money for me.”

Not for the first time, Nicky thinks how much he hates Ibrahim al-Kaysani. 

Something angry might have crossed Nicky’s face, because Joe squeezes his hand. “It’s all right,” he says. “I still had way more opportunities than most people do. Best schools, uni paid for—I’m okay with not having my father’s money. Sometimes I’m glad I don’t.”

“You are the best person I’ve ever known,” Nicky tells him. He means it.

Joe smiles, eyes crinkling at the sides of his temples. He kisses Nicky’s neck, which soon turns into another bout of full-on making out, but after two days of continuous fucking, it doesn’t go anywhere. There’s something special about that, even, Nicky thinks as Joe falls asleep curled next to him. 

Nicky doesn’t doze for a single minute, sick with the feeling of what will happen tomorrow and desperate to capitalize on every last moment he has with Joe. A few hours after sunrise, Joe wakes up looking rested and content, and Nicky lets Joe believe that he also enjoyed a good night’s sleep.

They shower together, exchanging wandering touches and lazy kisses, then Nicky makes breakfast, one last little slice of perfect domesticity as they sit down across from each other at the table. 

“Joe,” he says, and Joe looks up from his fried eggs, face open and earnest. Nicky can’t touch his own food. Part of him wants to lie, to come up with some story that will entice Joe to stay here with him forever, but he can’t bring himself to deceive Joe, not after he’s put all his trust in Nicky. 

“You’re going home today.” The words drop in the kitchen like stones in a lake, little plops disturbing the peace and rippling out with consequences. 

Joe sets his fork down, a bit of egg still speared on it. “Today?” His eyes are wide with surprise.

“Today.” 

“Oh. Um. I mean. That’s—that’s good.” He’s blinking rapidly, and he doesn’t look as relieved as Nicky had expected. He has no idea what that means, but tells himself not to read into it. 

Nicky forces himself to nod. “Yes.”

“I—when?”

“Booker will be here any minute,” Nicky says, praying that’s true. “I’m going to finalize things, and then I’ll be back for you.” 

“Oh—okay.” Joe swallows and stares down at his plate, tapping his fork against it for a minute. Abruptly, he looks back up, a determined set to his face. “Nicky—” he begins. 

Then there’s a knock at the door. Nicky doesn’t look at Joe as he stands and strides out of the kitchen. 

———

Copley is already at the exchange point when Nicky arrives, leaning against his car.

“Nico,” he says. “Good to see you. And good to be getting this wrapped up.”

“Yes,” Nicky agrees absently, lighting a cigarette. 

They only wait for a few minutes before another vehicle—sleek, black, expensive—pulls up. A woman with cropped, dark hair gets out of the driver’s side, while a bulky man steps out from the passenger’s seat. 

“Where’s Joe?” the woman demands as she stalks near them. Nicky can see the outline of her gun in her waistband.

“The money first,” Nicky says. “He’ll be released to you after.”

“Fuck that,” the woman says, arms crossed.

“Ma’am, this is how these things are done,” Copley explains patiently.

“Not with me. And don’t fucking call me ‘ma’am.’” 

Nicky pushes his hair from his face, sucking in a long drag of smoke. He has no patience for this.

“Listen,” he says. “My name is Nicolo di Genova. I’m wanted by Interpol and several other international organizations. I’ll be in Rome for the next three days. If you give us that money, you will have Joe back in less than two hours. And if you don’t, you can tell the authorities where to find me.” He levels his gaze at the woman. “Do we have a deal?” 

The woman stares back, eyes hard and assessing. “Okay,” she says finally. “Deal.” She gestures to the man beside her, who immediately begins unloading suitcases from the back of their SUV. 

Nicky opens his trunk and watches the man pile the suitcases into it. He nods to Copley, who explains to the security staff where they need to go to collect Joe.

“Two p.m.,” Nicky tells her. “He will be there.” 

“Looking forward to it,” she says coolly. She and the man get back in their vehicle and drive away. 

Copley turns to look at Nicky, eyebrows raised. “That was certainly an interesting negotiation tactic,” he says.

Nicky shrugs, intent on playing it off. “Don’t trash your phone. You’ll hear from me soon.” He gets into his car and drives off, leaving Copley and his curious expression in the dust. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I love, love to hear from you, in the comments below or on [Tumblr](https://dreamtiwasanarchitect.tumblr.com/)!


	8. white out

An awkward silence hangs over the living room as Joe and Booker sit together on the ugly couch, waiting for Nicky to return. Joe wonders if Booker knows about them, somehow, if it’s obvious or if Nicky even told him. He finds he doesn’t really care. 

Booker clears his throat and gives Joe a sidelong glance. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Joe says automatically. It’s technically true. 

“You’re going home,” Booker says, as if Joe doesn’t already know. Joe thinks he’s trying to drum up some enthusiasm. He just nods. 

It’s not that Joe doesn’t want to go home—it’s more that he doesn’t want to leave Nicky. He doesn’t want to give up whatever is happening between them. He’s been stewing on it all morning. How do you ask your kidnapper if he wants to start dating you? 

The answer is you don’t, of course, but Joe’s having a hard time accepting it.

Quiet settles over them again until Joe hears a car approaching. He sits up a little straighter, heart pounding. 

Nicky lets himself in. “It’s done,” he tells them. He says something to Booker in rapid Italian—Joe picks out “money” but not much else—and Booker leaves the room, leaving Joe and Nicky alone again.

“So,” Joe says. “I’m going home.” 

“You’re going home.” Nicky takes a tentative step forward. His lips are lifted into a tight smile, that doesn’t meet his eyes. 

Joe closes the space between them. “Nicky—”

“Joe, please,” Nicky says, wrapping his fingers around Joe’s wrists. He brings Joe’s hands up to his lips and kisses his knuckles. 

I love you, Joe thinks, but that’s insane. Still. There’s something. He doesn’t want to say goodbye.

He knows Nicky doesn’t want him to say it, but he can’t hold it back. “I’m going to miss you.” His throat is tight and his eyes are burning. 

Nicky nods once and dips his head, eyes fixed on Joe’s hands held between their chests. He doesn’t say anything, but his grip on Joe’s wrists tightens a little. “Go put your shoes on,” Nicky tells him, voice soft. He lets go of Joe, his hands dropping down to his pockets.

Joe’s shoes are in the bedroom, which is a complete mess of dirty clothes and dirtier sheets. He sits on the bed to slip them on, and his eyes catch on Nicky’s leather jacket. On impulse, he grabs it and tugs it on. 

When he comes out of the bedroom, he thinks he sees Nicky’s eyes widen a fraction. 

“Do you want it back?”

Nicky shakes his head. “Keep it,” he says quietly.

A parting gift, Joe thinks. 

Booker pops his head back through the front door. “All ready,” he says, then disappears again when Nicky nods.

He turns back to look at Joe, and Joe knows that even though they’re going to get in the car and drive somewhere, possibly for hours, this is the last time he’s going to be alone with Nicky—this is it.

He wants to sob, but instead he cups Nicky’s cheek and pulls him in for a kiss, long and sweet and about to get a little more serious when Nicky moves away.

He knocks his forehead against Joe’s, just for a second, then says, “Let’s go.”

Outside, he opens the back door for Joe before getting behind the wheel. Booker twists in his seat to give Joe a quick smile as Nicky starts the car.

They drive in silence for close to an hour, according to the clock on the dash, but it feels like seconds. In his head, Joe is still bargaining, plotting. Is there something he could do or say to keep Nicky? 

The car rolls to a stop, and he hasn’t had any genius ideas.

Nicky glances at him in the rearview mirror before fixing his gaze back on the road. “They’re waiting for you at a gas station, just up ahead.” 

Joe doesn’t move. This can’t be it, he thinks desperately. He wants another hug, another kiss. One last chance to feel Nicky’s hand in his hair, to breathe in his now-familiar scent. Something, anything. 

“Come on, get out,” Nicky says, voice raising, and his tone makes Joe flinch. It’s the first time Joe’s ever heard Nicky sound angry. 

His vision blurs a little as he fumbles for the door handle. The minute the door shuts behind him, the car speeds away, tires screeching.

Joe wants to sit down on the side of the road and sob, but he knows people are waiting for him, probably with at least some degree of anxiety, whoever they are, so he staggers forward, tears streaking down his face. He only has to walk for a few minutes before he sees the gas station. There are a couple cars parked around it, but the door of a glossy SUV opens and Andy’s jumping out of the driver’s side, sprinting toward him.

“Joe!” she yells.

He keeps heading toward her until she catches him in her arms. He buries his head in her neck and cries while she tells him it’s okay, he’s safe now, they’re taking him home, his mother and sisters are here too, they can’t wait to see him. Joe’s sobbing, a terrible howling sound that’s defeating to his own ears, and he doesn’t know how to explain to her what he’s really upset about, so he doesn’t say anything, just lets her bundle him into the backseat of the vehicle. 

They begin the drive back to Rome, and Joe calms down enough to tell Andy no, he doesn’t need to see a doctor, he’s completely fine, and no, he’s not hungry, he had breakfast (which is technically true, though he found he had very little appetite once Nicky broke the news that his ransom was finally being paid). 

Once she’s satisfied he’s not in any immediate danger, he rests his head against the window and pretends to be asleep to avoid any further conversation. 

———

They pull up to Hotel Hassler and Joe stops feigning sleep. Andy and the hired muscle escort him in through a back entrance, and after a short elevator ride, the doors open to an opulent suite.

“Yusuf!” His name echoes as three voices scream it in unison. He’s barely taken a step into the suite before he feels three pairs of arms wrapping around whatever part of him they can. 

In the following hours, his mother frets and fusses and passes along half-hearted well-wishes from his father. Nnenna fixates on his physical needs—is he hungry, is he tired, does he want to shower, or would he like to go on a walk?—while Effie tells him that he can talk to her about it, whatever happened, whenever he’s ready.

“There’s not much to talk about,” Joe finally snaps. “I’m really okay. I was bored sometimes. That’s it. They didn’t hurt me.”

Everyone looks skeptical. The next day, Andy comes back with the local police. Joe’s mother and sisters leave the room, but Andy sticks around as the police question him.

Not that it’s very useful for them. Joe gives an abbreviated version of events—he was taken when he was leaving work, held in a room somewhere in Rome, then taken somewhere in the mountains by another man, and kept there for the remainder of his captivity. He says he doesn’t know the names of the men who took him or held him, and no, he doesn’t think he could really describe their appearance to a sketch artist.

He feels Andy’s eyes on him the whole time. 

When the police get bored of his useless answers, they turn their attention to Andy. She says she was in contact with one man throughout, and she doesn’t know his name, either. She tells them where she met her contact to exchange the money, and where she was instructed to wait for Joe. She says she doesn’t know anything else. Finally, the police leave.

Andy hangs back. “Joe,” she says very quietly.

Joe looks up from where he’s making nonsense doodles in a sketchpad Nnenna had pressed on him. 

“Did they threaten you, those men?” 

Joe shakes his head. His eyes fall on Nicky’s jacket, draped over the back of one of the hotel chairs. 

“Then why didn’t you tell the police more? I know you could do the sketch yourself.”

“I could,” Joe admits.

“So why not?” Andy demands.

Joe shrugs. “They didn’t hurt me. I don’t know. I’m back now. It doesn’t matter.”

“You don’t seem okay,” Andy says.

“I am,” Joe insists without conviction. “It’s just—the whole thing was a little weird. And this is an adjustment. I think…I think I’d like to just go back to my flat, honestly. See if Pancake still remembers me.” He forces a smile.

“You’re not being held hostage _here_ ,” Andy points out.

“Tell that to my mother.”

She grins. “I’ll put a bug in your sister’s ear, okay? She’ll handle your mom.”

Joe sighs with relief. “Thanks, Andy. For—for everything, too.”

Andy stands and gives his shoulder a squeeze. “Don’t thank me. I’m just glad you’re home safe.” 

“Yeah,” Joe says without feeling, gripping his charcoal. “Me too.” 

Andy turns to go.

“Wait,” Joe says suddenly, and she freezes with a hand on the door knob. 

“How—how much was the ransom?” Joe asks. It never really occurred to him ask before, but now he feels like he has to know. 

Andy gives him a searching look. “Thirty-five million dollars,” she tells him.

Thirty-five million. Is it all Nicky’s, Joe wonders, or will he even see a cent of it? What will he spend it on, and will he think about Joe when he does? Is he relaxing in a ritzy villa surrounded by piles of money, or has he already moved on to his next job? 

Andy leaves, and the lines he’s been been aimlessly tracing in the sketchbook start to take form. It’s Nicky’s face, and he draws every expression he can think of as best he can, desperate to commit them all to memory. He draws until his hand cramps, then he wraps himself in Nicky’s jacket and curls up on the couch. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always love hearing from you, so please, scream with me in the comments or come share my pain [on Tumblr](https://dreamtiwasanarchitect.tumblr.com/).


	9. come down

After Joe gets out of the car, Nicky speeds away like a man possessed. He’s desperate to put as much distance between them as soon as possible, because if he doesn’t, he’ll turn the car around, grab Joe, throw him in the backseat, and never let him out of his sight again. 

Sebastien looks over at him, face pale, eyes wide. “Nico, Jesus fuck—pull over, let me drive, you’re gonna run us off the road.”

Nicky doesn’t respond, but after a close call where he takes a turn around the mountain road way, way too fast, he’s forced to admit Sebastien is right. He pulls over and gets out, arms crossed as he waits for Sebastien to switch sides with him.

The rest of the drive passes in silence, though Sebastien keeps shooting him worried glances. Nicky feels separate from it, like he’s floating outside his body. There’s a roar of pain reverberating through his chest, but he’s hollowed out, empty. It can’t touch anything, he tells himself, because there’s nothing there. It can’t hurt him.

Back at the house, they take the suitcases from the little shed where Sebastien stashed them and bring them back to Nicky’s car, all without speaking until Nicky slams the trunk closed.

Sebastien grips his shoulder. “Nico,” he says, “are you going to be okay to drive to Rome?”

“Yes,” Nicky says automatically.

“Bullshit. Let me drive you.” 

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not. Nico,” Sebastien begins, then hesitates. “It was the right thing to do. You had to let him go,” he finishes gently. “You did what you had to. And now it’s done, all you have to do is make it back to Rome with these—” he bangs a fist on the trunk for emphasis “—in one piece. Let me help you.”

Nicky can’t meet his eyes, so he just focuses on the space between, the little lined furrow of Sebastien’s brow. “Do you want out?” he asks suddenly.

The wrinkles of Sebastien’s face deepen. “What do you mean,” he says flatly.

“Do you want out?” Nicky repeats.

Sebastien snorts. “I’m forty fucking years old and I just spent two weeks babysitting the world’s nicest kidnappee. I think Jean-Pierre is going to start calling the bus driver ‘dad’ soon. Amelie and I haven’t slept together in months. Of course I fucking want out.” 

Nicky rubs his temple. “Right. Of course.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Sebastien demands suspiciously.

Nicky shakes his head. “Never mind it. I need to get to Rome. Can you cover our tracks up in the cave?”

Sebastien nods, still watching Nicky suspiciously as he gets behind the wheel. 

“Meet me at my uncle’s, tomorrow,” Nicky tells him. “For your cut.” 

“Okay,” Sebastien says. “Please don’t crash and die.”

Nicky doesn’t respond. He feels like he already has. 

———

It’s late when Nicky get to his uncle’s house. Matteo greets him personally at the door—along with a host of staff who make quick work of bringing in the suitcases—and claps him in an embrace.

“Nico, Nico, you’re a guy who knows how to get a job done, eh?”

Nicky smiles thinly, but luckily Matteo seems less interested in chatting and more concerned with barricading himself in his study to count the money. Nicky shows himself to one of the grandiose guest rooms. He strips down to his underwear and climbs into bed, though he has no illusions of actually sleeping.

Instead, he lays awake and thinks about Joe and entertains impossible fantasies—tracking him down at his flat, stealing him away in the night and taking him out of the country. He imagines holing up together, and Joe would be so well-fed and so well-fucked that he’d never think twice about anything he left behind. 

Joe could do anything to him—put him on his knees, slap his face, fuck his mouth, call him a slut and take him any way he pleased—and Nicky would do anything for him—worship every inch of his skin, kiss him until he went dizzy, suck love bites into his neck and fuck him until he cried. Picturing it makes him hard, but the knowledge that none if it will ever come to pass spoils it all, so he lays awake, angry and wanting. 

His uncle summons him the next morning, and Nicky stands before his desk, piled with stacks and stacks of bills, like a supplicant ready to receive benediction. 

“It’s all there,” Matteo says, grinning ear to ear.

No shit, Nicky thinks, but says nothing.

“Your five,” Matteo says, pushing several stacks toward him.

“Thank you,” Nicky says, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“You did so well,” Matteo says, his tone faux-casual. “A good job. Fast, clean. I have been thinking, Nico. I am not going to live forever. Someone will need to take over all of this—” he spreads his arms in an expansive gesture “—and who better than my own blood? You’ve proven yourself. Time to stop traipsing around the globe, hm?”

He saw this coming a mile away, but he still plasters what he hopes is an expression of pleasant surprise on to his face. “I would be honored, uncle,” Nicky says.

Matteo beams and stands from behind the desk. “Your father would be proud, Nico. Let’s drink to it, then.” Even though it’s ten in the morning, he walks over to the bar cart, back turned, and Nicky knows this is the moment.

A hundred memories run through Nicky’s mind—he hears Matteo’s voice, raised and angry, low and dangerous, feels the sharp agony of glass shattering on his head, the blunt ache of a fist on his solar plexus—and he pulls his gun from his jacket and shoots his uncle straight through the head. Matteo drops to the marble floor, the spill of his blood encroaching on the Persian rug. 

Something that’s been sitting heavily in the pit of Nicky’s stomach lifts. He should feel sad, guilty, anything for the man who technically raised him for half his childhood, but all he feels is a kind of subdued relief. He must be a monster, that he could do this without batting an eye. It’s only further proof that the time he spent with Joe was nothing more than him playing at a life he’s not worthy of.

He hears footsteps, someone running down the hall. He takes a seat in one of the armchairs, gun at the ready. If it’s staff, he’ll deal with them however he needs to, though they should know well enough to clear out at the sound of gunshots.

It’s Sebastien who bursts through the door, his own gun drawn, sandy hair flopping into his face. 

“Have you just arrived, then?” Nicky asks casually as he lights a cigarette.

“Yes, fuck, Nico, I heard a gunshot—” As he looks around the room, he sees Matteo’s body. His wide eyes lock on the corpse. “Nico,” he says slowly, voice low. “What have you done?”

“I’ve set us free,” Nicky says. 

Sebastien stares. The more panicked he looks, the calmer Nicky feels, though it’s a manic sort of peace. He stands and strides over to the desk. “How much do you want?”

Sebastien’s gaze is now darting from Nicky to Matteo, torn between the obscenity of the blood and the obscenity of the money. 

“Five?” Nicky presses. “Ten?”

“Nico—”

Nicky counts out a stack of ten and pushes it on Sebastien. “Take it. Take it and go home to your wife and kids and tell them you never have to leave again. Go back to France if you like. Whatever. You wanted out, now you’re out.” 

Sebastien’s hands close around the bills. “And—and what about you?”

“I’m out, too.” 

“Do you—do you need help?”   
Nicky shakes his head. “No. Thank you,” he says, and he’s not just talking about this solitary offer. 

Sebastien seems to know what he means. He stuffs as many bills as he can in his pockets, then wraps Nicky in a hug. 

“Take care of yourself, Nico,” he says. 

Nicky’s hand squeezes against Sebastien’s jacket. “I will. I’ll be in touch, if you want.”

“Yeah,” Sebastien says, “do that.” He smiles a little and goes, leaving Nicky alone in the study again. He sits down in his uncle’s chair, feet up on the desk, smoking his cigarette down to the butt when he hears more footsteps—lighter, tentative. One of the staff—a young woman who can’t be more than twenty—peers into the study.

Nicky watches her face lose all its color as she takes in the scene. Slowly, he pulls his gun, telegraphed movements meant to catch her eye. She still looks like she’s considering running for it.

“Come here,” he orders. 

Her hands shake as she approaches the desk. Nicky sets the gun down and leans forward. “What’s your name?” 

“Bria,” she tells him, voice high with fear.

“Bria,” he repeats, and drops three stacks of bills in front of her. “What did you see here?”

She stares at him, eyes wide. “N-nothing?” 

Nicky nods. “You weren’t working today.”

Bria shakes her head. “No,” she says slowly. “Not on Sundays.” 

Nicky’s lips curl at the corners. “That’s right. Good.” He gestures at the money. “Go.”

Bria stands frozen for a beat, then she suddenly darts forward, scoops up the bills, and scurries out of the room. Nicky relaxes back into the chair and takes out his phone.

“Copley,” he says when the call connects, “how would you like a bigger cut?” 

“How much bigger?”  
“You can take ten.” 

The line is quiet, and then Copley asks, “What’s it going to cost?”

“One Canadian passport,” Nicky says. He glances over to his uncle’s body, and the blood that’s now drying on the floor and rug. “And a clean-up crew.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Talk to me here, talk to me on [Tumblr](https://dreamtiwasanarchitect.tumblr.com/), just let me know what you thought.


	10. heart sick

Pancake snuggles into Joe’s lap, purring loudly. It had taken almost a week, but she’s finally forgiven him for his absence, involuntary though it was. 

During that first week, Joe locked himself in his flat and pined. He drank, ate ice cream, and watched shitty romantic comedies. It hadn’t made him feel any better, but he needed to get back to work unless he wanted to move home with his mother, so he’d resettled into the routine of his life before the kidnapping as best he could. It was easy enough to go back to his favorite cafe, to charm the tourists at MACRO, to pick up takeout on his way home and even go out for the occasional drink with friends, but it all felt empty and pointless in a way it never had before, his small, insignificant life. 

“Okay,” Nile says, handing him a beer as she joins him on his couch, legs curled up beneath her. “Whatever you feel comfortable talking about.”

Joe had texted her last night while he laid awake at two in the morning, _i have to talk to you about some shit that i havent told anyone_ , and four hours later she responded, _okay, hows tonight work?_

“This is about, you know…the kidnapping, right?” she adds, grimacing a little. 

“Yeah,” Joe says, “it is.” They’ve talked a few times since he’s been home, but nothing major, just re-treading the same ground he’s covered with everyone else—yes, it was scary, but no, they didn’t hurt him, and yeah, he’s okay. 

Only the third thing is a lie.

“You have to promise not to judge me,” he says, picking at the label of his beer bottle. “It’s…it’s kind of—I don’t know, it sounds kind of crazy. And I know that, okay?”

Nile looks apprehensive, but she nods. 

“So. The guy that took me away from Rome, up in the mountains? We, uh, we had sex.”

Nile’s eyes double in size as her casual posture goes rod-straight. “Joe,” she says, “you—you haven’t told anyone else? Have you seen a doctor?”

“No, listen, Nile—I’m not saying that he, that he…raped me. We had sex, sex that I wanted to have.”

Nile doesn’t look convinced. She starts to fiddle with her septum ring, which Joe knows is one of her tells for feeling uncomfortable. 

“And I’m pretty sure I’m in love with him,” Joe adds. “His name is Nicky, by the way.” 

Now she looks a little afraid. Joe sips his beer while he waits for her to formulate a response. 

“Joe,” Nile says slowly. “I’m not—I’m not judging you, you were in a situation where you didn’t have a lot of choices, but…they have a name for this, don’t they? The thing where you start sympathizing with your captor?”

Joe bristles. “Look, I Googled it, like, _a lot_ , and that’s not what’s happening, okay?”

“And…and why do you think that?” Her voice is full of forced patience. 

“Because,” Joe says, which isn’t the most convincing argument. Nile waits for him to continue, then buries her face in her hands when he realizes that was the extent of his rebuttal.

“You said you wouldn’t judge me,” he reminds her.

“Joe, I’m not, I just…I think you need to admit what’s going on so you can work through it.”

“Nile, I know what’s going on. I’m in love with him, okay?” He thinks about Nicky several times a day, triggered by sense memories as commonplace as a cigarette smoke. He can usually only sleep after he gets off to the memory of Nicky’s hands and mouth and perfect ass, or the slightly fucked-up fantasy of Nicky fucking him bent over that car, hands tied behind his back. 

But it’s more than that—the genuine interest in Nicky’s face, illuminated by only the lantern, as he hung on Joe’s every word; the panic in his voice when Joe was sick and the desperation in it when he begged Joe to touch him; the gentleness of his hands as he carried Joe down the mountain, as he touched his curls. 

“I wish it were just some Stockholm Syndrome shit,” Joe finishes, “because then I think I could get over it, but—but now I don’t know if I can.” The feel of Nicky sleeping in his arms haunts him like a phantom limb. 

“Joe, he kidnapped you.”

“He’s still a good person,” Joe says. “Look, how’d you know to come here to feed Pancake?”

She frowns at him, confused. “Our boss called me.” 

“On the second day I was gone, right? A Tuesday, a day I don’t work? He called you and said I was missing even though I hadn’t failed to show up yet? How did he know?”

“I don’t know, he didn’t say—”

“It’s because I asked Nicky, I asked him to make sure Pancake would be okay, and he did!” As his voice raises, the cat in question jumps off Joe’s lap and skulks off into the kitchen.

“Nile,” Joe says, more calmly this time. “I know it sounds—insane. Clinically. But, I just keep thinking, we could’ve met at a club or a, a poetry reading, or something, and no one would be asking me these questions.”

“Well, yeah, ‘cause in those scenarios he wouldn’t have tied you up and put you in the trunk of his car,” Nile points out.

“I’m just saying, I know it’s not exactly a meet-cute, but maybe it was, I don’t know…meant to be.” 

Nile takes a long drink of her beer. “Okay,” she says finally. “Let’s ignore how problematic this entire thing is, for like, a second. What do you wanna do about it?”

“I want to find Nicky,” Joe tells her. “I want to find him now that this whole thing is done and see if he feels the same way.”

“And you think he does?”

The possibility has crossed Joe’s mind that it was an all act, that the time they spent fucking was just a pleasant divergence for Nicky, an easy way to keep Joe compliant. That the thing with Pancake and the jacket was just to get Joe to trust him. That all the concern Nicky showed when Joe was sick was just fear of not getting a return on his investment.

It’s possible. It’s maybe even the most likely explanation. 

But it doesn’t feel like the truth.

“I think he does,” Joe says. 

Nile rests her head on the back of the couch and sighs. “How do you plan to find a literal mobster when you only know his first name, and that’s assuming he wasn’t lying about it?”

“I don’t know,” Joe admits. He rubs his face. “I mean. I have an idea. But she’s gonna take some convincing. Is there any way I could’ve told you this that would have gone over better?”

Nile stares at him for a moment before getting up for another beer. 

———

Two days later, Andy arrives at the agreed upon time, and Joe shows her into his abnormally clean apartment. He’s changed out of the sweats and t-shirt he’d worn for days in a row into something far more presentable, hoping to reinforce the idea that he is one hundred percent in his right mind and not suffering from any serious psychological after-effects.

“Thanks for coming, Andy, I know you’d just gotten back—”

She waves him off and sits on his worn papasan chair, leaned forward with her hands clasped. “No worries. This is priority.” 

“Anything to drink?”

“Vodka if you have it.”

“How’s hard seltzer?”

Her lips purse. “Water’s fine.”

Joe pours a glass and brings it to Andy before taking a seat on the couch. “So. I have something to tell you. And I don’t want you to freak out.”

Andy’s eyebrows arch.

“It’s about the people who, uh, who had me. Specifically, one of the people.”

“Which one?”

“He said his name was Nicky. I’m not sure if that’s really his name, but I want to find him.”

Andy pauses with the glass half-raised to her lips. “Why?”

“Because I think we might be in love,” Joe says. “I know how it sounds, please don’t tell me I’m crazy.” 

Her fingers come up to massage her temple. “This is why you didn’t tell the police anything.”

“Yes.”

“Jesus, Joe. I thought maybe they had something on you, or had threatened you—”

“No,” Joe begins.

“—that’s why I didn’t tell the police anything.”

“Wait. What?”

Andy sighs. “That man—Nicky—was there to get the cash, along with the guy I’d been talking to. He told me his real name, his full name, because I didn’t want to hand over the money without you.”

Nicky’s real name. Joe’s heart seizes up at the thought. “What is it, what’s his name—”

“He also told me he was a wanted criminal. Internationally.”

Joe files that away for later. “Come on, Andy. What’s his name?”

Andy looks exasperated, clearly annoyed that he cares more about knowing who Nicky really is than his cross-country rap sheet. “Nicolo di Genova.” 

It’s a beautiful name, Joe thinks. “Can you help me find him? Please?”

“Joe—no,” she says sharply. “This is a terrible idea. The only help you need right now comes in the form of talk therapy.”

Joe forces himself to stay calm, because he knows a meltdown will only make him look even more out of touch with reality.

“This happens,” Andy continues. “It’s a response to the trauma. It hasn’t even been a full month, you can’t—” 

“We had sex,” Joe tells her. “Sex that I initiated, lots of it. So. It’s not just in my head, or whatever you’re thinking.”

“Then he took advantage of you, Joe,” Andy says, like she’s explaining something to a five-year-old. The kindness in her voice makes him want to smash something. 

“He didn’t,” Joe insists. 

“Look,” she tells him flatly, “the only reason I would track this guy down for you is to kick his ass five ways to Sunday.”

“Andy, please,” he begs. “Listen, if this is all in my head, and I go find him, he’ll tell me that, won’t he? And I’ll know and I can move on.”

“Or he’ll—”

“What, kidnap me again? Even though you know his name, and if you help me find him, you’ll know where he is, too?”

Andy’s head drops as she stares down at the floor. She rubs her eyes, clearly deep in thought. “Okay,” she says at last, looking up.

Joe blinks. “Okay? Really?”

“Look, I don’t know if I can find him. I have one idea—the guy I was in touch with when they had you. I think I can get ahold of him. But if he doesn’t know where Nicky is, we’re probably shit out of luck.”

“Okay,” Joe says, trying not to get his hopes up. It’s worth a shot.

“And,” Andy says, “there’s gonna be conditions.”

Joe frowns. “Like what?”

“If you really go to this guy, you check in at regular intervals, and if you don’t, I’ll fucking storm the place, wherever it is.” Andy’s eyes flash.

Joe nods. “Sounds reasonable.”

“One final condition,” Andy says. 

“Let’s hear it.”

“If things don’t go the way you hope, you come back and you go to therapy.”

“Okay,” Joe agrees slowly, sensing there’s more. “And if they do go the way I hope?”

“I’m coming to do a wellness check and make sure you haven’t turned into some mobster’s Stepford fucking wife.”

Joe almost laughs, but he doesn’t want her to think he’s not taking this seriously, so he keeps his face straight as sticks out his hand. “Deal.” 

They shake on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're in the endgame now...
> 
> I love hearing your hopes, fears, predictions, etc. Talk to me in the comments or on [Tumblr](https://dreamtiwasanarchitect.tumblr.com/)!


	11. snow blind

Nicky rings up the last of the customers, four men and women with American accents who’ve each just bought a set of the cheapest ski poles the store carries. As they leave chattering about how early they can bail on their sessions tomorrow to make it to the slopes, Nicky nods at Chrissy, who immediately flips the sign to closed and locks the door. 

“These conferences always make things a little crazy,” Chrissy says brightly as Nicky closes the till. “This is marketing one is one of the biggest we see.” 

Chrissy is only eighteen, but she’s been working in the shop on weekends, holidays, and breaks for three years now. While Nicky initially had his reservations about keeping a teen girl on staff, the previous owners had vouched for her, and Chrissy has proved to be a bastion of institutional knowledge, both about the shop and Banff itself. 

While it’s not as high-stakes as working for the mob, running the outdoor apparel store has proved more stressful than Nicky anticipated. When he purchased it, and the flat above, from an older couple retiring to Calgary to be closer to their grandkids, he assumed it would be boring, if not lucrative work. But there’s yet to be a dull moment, although according to Chrissy, in a month or so they’ll have a weeks-long lull. He’s looking forward to it. 

After a busy day, most of their displays are a little askew, but Nicky can come in when they’re closed tomorrow to see to those, so he waves Chrissy away from straightening them. 

“Go on, get home while it’s still light out,” he tells her.

“Kay,” she says quickly, and starts shrugging on her coat. “Bye, Nicky, see you Tuesday!” 

Nicky isn’t far behind her, though instead of heading out the storefront, he goes through the employees only door that leads to a stairwell. One flight up, he lets himself into his apartment.

He pours himself a glass of wine and opens the window before lighting a cigarette, his after-work treat. Closing up the shop and coming home is always bittersweet. He’s usually tired, drained from a day of pleasant, small-talk-style interactions with customers, but without the hustle of the shop to occupy him, all his thoughts turn to Joe.

It’s been nearly three months, and he still thinks about him—the corners of his eyes crinkling as he smiled, the softness of his curls, the heat of his body spooned against Nicky’s. 

He stares out of the window of the flat, looking down at the street. The sun has properly set, but lights from still-open shops, including the dispensary across the way, keep it from feeling like true night. It’s started to snow, the light and flakey sort that’s certainly not enough to deter the conference goers from exploring the little ski town. Nicky can see them milling about, mostly people his age, some of them bound to be unattached gay men. He could go to one of the pubs and try to pick someone up, and maybe for a few minutes he could stop thinking about Joe.

The prospect of it just feels bleak, so he stays where he’s at, watching the snow fall. 

Nicky’s pulled out of his reverie by a knock on the door. He jolts into action and grabs his gun from the coffee table drawer, moving quietly to the door as he tries to think of anyone who could be calling on him for innocent reasons. There’s no peephole, but he keeps the gun cradled close to his chest as he cracks the door open. 

It’s Joe—bouncy curls, bright eyes, open face. He’s wearing a parka and snow boots. 

Nicky stares, wondering if he’s having some sort of psychotic break. It’s entirely possible. 

“Nicky,” Joe says, voice full of emotion, eyes wide and beseeching. “Can I—can I come in?” 

Wordlessly, Nicky holds the door open and lets the gun fall to his side. Joe gives it an apprehensive look as he pushes past Nicky, so Nicky closes the door and puts the gun back in the drawer. 

They sit on opposite ends of the couch, both pressed up against either arm of it, keeping a purposeful distance. Joe takes off the parka, balls it up and cradles it in his lap. Nicky can’t speak. He’s still not sure this isn’t a dream, or a hallucination. He barely touched his wine, but—

“Nicky? Are you—is this okay?”

“Yes,” Nicky finally manages. “It’s only—is this real?”

Joe laughs, a little nervously. “Yeah. I’m—I’m here.” 

“I’m sorry,” Nicky says.

Joe blinks, face scrunching in confusion. “You’re sorry?”

“For—for what I did.” Nicky swallows. “For kidnapping you. I’m sorry.” 

“I—I know,” Joe says, still looking bewildered. “I mean, I figured.” 

Why, Nicky wonders. He scrubs a hand over his face, half-expecting Joe to vanish when he re-opens his eyes. “How—how are you here?”

Joe looks a little guilty. “Well. Andy—my father’s head of security? She helped. She said you told her your name, your full name.”

“I did,” Nicky says slowly, “but that still doesn’t explain how you got here.”

“She got back in touch with um, the other person who was involved, Copley. She had to work on him for weeks, but he agreed to meet with me and I—I told him that I wanted to find you, that I wanted to see you again.” 

Fucking Copley. Nicky gave the man ten million dollars to make him disappear, and three months in he’s already giving Nicky up. 

“Please—don’t be mad at him, or anything. He only told me because I convinced him you’d be glad he did.” Joe peers at him. “Are you?”

“Am I…”

“Glad,” Joe says. “To see me.” 

“I am, but—I don’t understand,” Nicky admits. 

“Don’t understand what?”

He sallows. “Why you’re here.” 

Joe pulls his feet up on the couch and crosses his legs, boots dripping snow onto the upholstery. “Well. I couldn’t stop thinking about you, really. I wanted to see you again. Ideally on a more permanent basis. If that’s something you wanted.” Joe looks at him expectantly, eyes wide. 

Only more than anything, Nicky thinks, but that’s a crazy fantasy. “I’m not like you, Joe,” he says. 

“What? Gay? Because you did a pretty convincing impersonation—”

“No,” Nicky cuts him off. “A good person.” 

“You are, though.”

“I kidnapped you, Joe. How can you be with me for real? How can I expect you to—to trust me?”

“Because you took care of me,” Joe says, like it’s so simple. He shifts a little closer to Nicky. “Was it your idea, or your plan, or whatever? To kidnap me?”

The question takes Nicky by surprise. “No,” he says, wary of where this is headed.

“Why’d you do it?” Joe presses.

“My uncle. It was—at his instruction.” 

“What would have happened if you didn’t do it?”

He’d have been hit, beaten, maybe shot. Nicky just shrugs, trying not to remember all the times he went to school with a bruised cheek or black eye. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does.” 

“It doesn’t,” Nicky says, sharper now, “because he’s dead. I shot him when I got back to Rome.”

Joe looks at him with shock.

“And I don’t regret it,” Nicky continues. “I would do it again. Do you still think I’m a good person?” he asks, desperate for Joe to understand. 

For a minute, Joe doesn’t say anything, his shining eyes searching Nicky’s face. “Why did you kill him?” he asks finally. 

“I wanted out.” 

“Out?”

“Of his organization. From under his thumb.” He runs his fingers through his hair before looking back at Joe. “You don’t need to hear this.”

“I want to,” Joe urges. “Tell me.” 

Nicky lets out a shaky breath. “I don’t remember my father,” he says finally. “He was killed, on a job for my uncle, when I was a baby. My mother took me away to the town she was raised in, and we lived there until she got sick. When she died, my uncle took me in. When I was sixteen, I started working for him, too. Following in my father’s footsteps.”

He stares at the melted snow running down the sole of Joe’s shoe, afraid to see the look on Joe’s face. “I’ve killed a lot of people, Joe. A lot of them have been bad, too, but some of them were innocent.” 

“You were a kid,” Joe says gently. “You didn’t really have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice. Including what—what we did.”

“Yeah,” Joe says, and when Nicky sneaks a glance, his face is crinkled in confusion. “It was mine and I made it.”

Nicky shakes his head. “You were—you were at my mercy. And I took advantage of you.”

Joe leans back into the couch, arms crossed. “I don’t know, definitely felt like you were at _my_ mercy a couple times.” 

Nicky glares. “You know what I mean.” 

“I know what you mean, but I don’t agree. It wasn’t like that for me. But the fact that you feel like you have something to be all Catholic and penitent about only proves my point.”

“What point?” 

“You’re a good person, Nicky. You’re a good person who’s done some bad things. And you want to put them behind you. I get it. But—what we did, yeah, the circumstances were shitty, but it wasn’t a bad thing. And I don’t want to move on from it.”

Something clenches in Nicky’s chest. 

“Do you?” Joe asks. “Because if you do—I’ll leave. I’ll go home and go to therapy and try to get over you like Andy wants me to.”

“That’s what you should do,” Nicky says, throat tight. 

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Fuck. I don’t think I can move on,” Nicky admits. “I’ve thought about you every day. Several times. When we were at the house, I kept pretending it was our life together, that it was real. And when I drove away from you—I felt empty. It was like nothing mattered to me anymore.” 

“I know,” Joe says. “I feel it, too.” He reaches out for Nicky’s hand. “It could be real. If you want.”

Nicky takes it, blinking the tears out of his eyes. “I want,” he whispers, and then they’re kissing fast and messy. The parka falls to the floor. After a few minutes of writhing against each other, Joe ends up straddling Nicky’s lap, their heaving chests and thumping hearts pressed together.

“Nicky,” Joe breathes in his ear, then his lips trail down Nicky’s neck, biting and sucking. Nicky slides a hand underneath Joe’s sweater, feeling at the firmness of his perfect chest. He pinches at a nipple and Joe cries out. His cock is pressing into Nicky’s stomach, and Nicky’s sure he can feel Nicky’s hardness against his ass. 

“Can we take this to the bedroom?” Joe murmurs.

Nicky nods, speechless. Joe climbs off him and Nicky leads him into the bedroom. Once they’re there, the urgency they felt on the couch seems to fall away as they look at each other, suddenly struck by the intensity of their own need. 

Nicky still can’t entirely believe this is real. 

“I, um. I came prepared,” Joe says into the slightly awkward silence, and pulls a string of condoms from his back pocket.

“Fuck,” Nicky huffs, and starts tearing off his clothes. If this is a dream or a hallucination, it’s going to be a good one, at least.

Joe begins stripping too, and before he can even ask, Nicky arranges himself on the bed on all fours. He glances over his shoulder to look pointedly at Joe, who hurries forward. 

“God, Nicky,” he breathes. “Your ass. You look amazing like this.”

The purr of Joe’s voice has him arching his back, presenting. He’s already painfully hard. 

“I didn’t bring lube,” Joe admits, running a finger up and down Nicky’s spine. “Do you have some in here, or do I need to go back into the kitchen?” His voice is teasing, but Nicky is too keyed up for a witty response. 

“Drawer,” he says, nodding toward the nightstand.

Joe finds it and slicks up his fingers. “How, uh. How long has it been since you—”

“Close to a year,” Nicky tells him.

“I’ll go slow,” Joe promises, finger circling Nicky’s rim. 

“Don’t,” Nicky urges. Joe makes a low noise and pushes a finger in. Nicky rocks back on it, already wanting more—a deeper stretch, a greater burn. 

“Another?” Joe asks.

“Yes, fuck.”

Joe obliges. “You like it to hurt a little, don’t you?”

Nicky can’t help the needy sound he makes. He drops down to his elbows, his burning face buried in his forearms. 

“Don’t you?” Joe presses. 

“Yes, I—yes. Fuck.” 

Joe gives his ass a light slap and he moans, wondering if he could get off just from this. “You’re so hot, Nicky. Fuck. When I couldn’t sleep, I’d think about you and jerk off.”

“What did you think about?” Nicky asks, voice a little breathy.

“The things we did, mostly—your mouth on my cock, your fingers inside me. Kissing you. Touching you everywhere.” His fingers brush Nicky’s prostate and Nicky gasps.

“That’s the spot, then?”

Nicky nods, grinding on Joe’s fingers. Joe adds another and kisses the back of Nicky’s neck as he moans.

“Fuck, Nicky.” Joe’s quiet for a moment, breath coming heavy, then he says, “I thought about other things too. Things we didn’t do but—things I’d like to.”

“Like what?”

“Well, this, for one.” He slaps Nicky’s ass again, a little sharper this time. 

“Fuck,” Nicky pants. “Yes. What else?” He wants to know every fantasy Joe has ever had. 

Joe hesitates. “If you’re good, I’ll tell you later.”

Nicky wants to be good. He whines into the duvet, pressing back for more of Joe’s fingers. Instead, he’s rewarded with another smack, hard enough that it jostles him forward. “Fuck.”

“More of that?” 

“Please,” he moans.

“You are good,” Joe tells him, spanking him as he crooks his fingers. 

The words tug at Nicky’s chest. Wordlessly, he shakes his head, biting back his response. 

“You are,” Joe insists. The next slap is the hardest yet. 

It’s so good, and Nicky’s so close, but he doesn’t want to come until he has Joe inside him, so he looks over his shoulder. “I’m ready, fuck me now.” 

Joe’s eyes are dark and his mouth hangs slightly open, lips puffy from all the kissing. He removes his fingers with a wet squelch and rolls on a condom. Suddenly, Nicky realizes he wants to see Joe’s face for all of this, so he repositions himself on his back, legs spread wide.

“Shit,” Joe says. “Look at you. You look—”

“Desperate?” Nicky breathes, feeling color creep up his neck and cheeks. 

“I was going to say perfect,” Joe says, smiling at him. “But that, too.” He leans in and they kiss, slow and deep as he pushes into Nicky, who clutches at Joe’s back and moans into his mouth. 

“Feels okay?” Joe asks, voice strained.

“Perfect,” Nicky says. “Move, come on.” 

Joe starts fucking him properly, one hand at Nicky’s knee, pushing it wider, while the other cups his face. Nicky basks in the sensation, leaking cock pressed between their bellies.

When Joe pushes up to his hands, the angle shifts, and every thrust sends a shock down Nicky’s spine. He arches up into it, one hand grasping Joe’s bicep and the other wrapped around his cock.

“Fuck, Nicky, this is so good,” Joe mutters. “Are you close?”

“Yes, yes—”

Joe bites at his lip and the little spark of pain is enough to send Nicky over the edge, vision whiting out, sound rushing in his ears. Seconds later Joe collapses on top of him, damp with sweat as he twitches with aftershocks. 

“Fuck, that was good. Fuck. Fuck.” 

Nicky laughs then, feeling almost hysterical with bliss. He wraps his arms tightly around Joe, not wanting to separate just yet.

“It was good,” he agrees, lips brushing Joe’s curls as he speaks.

Joe kisses his shoulder and pulls out, tying off the condom and dropping it on the nightstand. He looks at Nicky, almost shy. “I can stay over?” 

“Yes—of course,” Nicky says, surprised. He frowns. “You think I would put you out on the street? After that?”

Joe grins. “I didn’t actually come to Canada with just the clothes on my back and a pocket full of condoms, you know. I have a hotel.”

“Don’t go back,” Nicky says.

“I’m going to have to at some point, all my stuff—”

“No, I mean. We can get your things. Just—stay here. If you want,” he adds.

“I want,” Joe says. “How long is the offer to stay good for?”

“As long as you want.” Hopefully forever, Nicky thinks.

“That could be a long time,” Joe warns. “I meant it, what I said. About—about us being real.” He says it so plainly, face honest and hoping, even though there’s a tenseness in the way he holds himself, like he’s braced for impact. He’s the bravest person Nicky’s ever known. 

“I haven’t had—this,” Nicky says. “Not with anyone else, not ever. I—I don’t know if I can be the person you deserve.” He threads his fingers between Joe’s, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “But I want to try. I don’t ever want to let you go again.” 

Joe beams and cups his cheek, bringing their foreheads together. “You don’t have to,” he says, and kisses him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So how's it going? Please share with the class in the comments, or talk to me on [Tumblr](https://dreamtiwasanarchitect.tumblr.com/).


	12. home bound

At the top of Tunnel Mountain, there are two red adirondack chairs. Joe brushes the snow off both before collapsing into one. His quads are on fire. 

“I can’t feel my legs,” he complains. “Or really, any of my extremities.” 

Nicky kisses his temple in consolation, his freezing nose brushing against Joe’s cheek, before he sits in the other chair. 

“It’s a beautiful view,” he says, gazing down the mountain at the town below. 

“Yeah, it is,” Joe says, grinning as he waits for Nicky to notice he’s staring at _him_.

Nicky glances over. His cheeks are already pink with cold, but Joe thinks he sees the blush deepen. 

“You’re hopeless,” Nicky mutters, though he’s clearly fighting a smile. Joe reaches out his hand and Nicky takes it, giving it a quick squeeze. 

For all of his self-doubt, Nicky has turned out to be an amazing—boyfriend? Partner? Lover? They haven’t assigned a label to their relationship, but they spend every night curled around each other. Nicky usually wakes up first and brings Joe coffee in bed, either an espresso from the fancy machine Joe brought home a week into their cohabitation, or a latte from the coffeeshop around the corner. He cooks most of their meals while Joe trails behind him in the kitchen, washing the dishes left in Nicky’s wake. After dinner they read or watch TV while Nicky rests his head in Joe’s lap and Joe runs his fingers through his hair. 

They’ve been in a fight exactly two times. The first time was when Nicky got annoyed at Joe’s sloppy bed-making and pointed out all the way he was doing it incorrectly, and the second was when Joe was out of town to visit his family and Nicky watched the last season of _Schitt’s Creek_ without him. Both incidents ended in make-up sex (Nicky pounding Joe into the mattress after he re-made the bed to Nicky’s satisfaction, and Nicky sitting with Joe’s cock in his mouth while Joe caught up on the episodes he missed, respectively). 

While he maintains that Nicky puts the rest of the scenery to shame, it’s still a good view. He uses his free hand to fish his phone from his pocket and snap a quick photo of the overlook for future sketch inspiration. He cringes a little when he notices the time.

“It’s almost ten,” he tells Nicky. “Should we get going?”

Nicky nods. They stand, hand in hand, and begin making their way down the mountain. 

———

Back at their apartment, Pancake is unsympathetic to their frozen condition as she meows to be fed. Joe picks her up, burying his cold hands in the warmth of her fur, while Nicky dishes out her lunch. The instant the food hits the dish, Pancake claws and squirms her way out of Joe’s arms. 

“This is why she likes you more than me, isn’t it?” 

When Andy visited for her “wellness check”—almost nine months ago now, Joe realizes with a start—she’d brought Pancake and most of Joe’s belongings with her. Pancake, likely traumatized by the plane, had taken a few months to adjust to her new home, and several more months to adjust to Nicky, but more and more she’s choosing his lap over Joe’s, something Joe can’t manage to get too upset about. 

“She will always like you best,” Nicky insists.

“Whatever you say. I’m going to warm up in the shower. Come with? It’ll be efficient.” He hooks a few fingers in Nicky’s waistband without waiting for an answer.

“It won’t,” Nicky says, but he grins and lets Joe tug him along. Nicky’s right, but they made it home ahead of schedule, and opportunities to get their hands on each other like this might be a little scarce for the next week. They strip off their layers of winter gear and let them fall to the floor of the bathroom. Nicky holds out his hand to test the water temperature while Joe waits impatiently, shivering. Nicky watches him with equal parts amusement and pity. He’d been willing to move anywhere Joe wanted, but Joe told him it was fine, at least for the time being. Sure, he hates the cold Canadian winter something fierce, but spending the dark, frigid nights bundled close to Nicky makes it all worth it. 

“It’s warm,” Nicky says, and they climb into the shower.

It’s impossible to know what the future holds, but as far as Joe is concerned, Banff is home, at least for now. They’ve built a life here. Nicky has the the store downstairs, and Joe has the Centre for Arts and Creativity, where he’s taught one course on digital arts, hopefully with more to follow. He’s used the time in between sessions to work on his own art and help out in the shop during busy seasons. They have a favorite pub and date-night restaurant—even a small group of casual friends who haven’t yet asked them how they met. (If they ever do, they’ll get the same story Joe told his family—they met while Joe was living in Italy and Nicky was back for a visit, all of which is true, in a sense.) 

The hot water fogs up the glass of the shower, and it feels like their surroundings drop away as the steam ensconces them. Nicky washes Joe’s curls for him, massaging at his scalp. Joe groans in satisfaction and can’t help grinding back against him, triumphing when he feels Nicky’s cock twitch against his cheeks.

Once they’re sufficiently clean, Nicky steps out. When Joe doesn’t follow, he peers back in through the door.

“Still trying to warm up?”“Actually,” Joe says, trying to keep his tone light, “I was thinking of, ah, getting extra squeaky clean.” He wiggles his eyebrows and Nicky looks like he’s fighting a grin. 

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” he says, closing the shower door. Joe hears him moving around near the sink for a few seconds before leaving. 

When Joe comes into the bedroom, Nicky’s reclining naked on the bed. He wiggles forward to yank the towel away from Joe’s waist, then tugs Joe down on top of him. They kiss leisurely for a few minutes until Joe starts feeling antsy and grinds his hips against Nicky’s. He guides Nicky’s hand from his upper back down to his ass cheek, hoping to speed things along. 

At first he thinks it’s worked—Nicky rolls them so he’s the one on top of Joe—but then he wraps his hands around Joe’s wrists, pinning them down on either side of his head in a grasp that makes Joe’s mouth go dry.

“Patience is a virtue,” Nicky whispers in his ear.

“Nicky,” Joe whines. He wiggles against Nicky’s grasp, thrilling in the strength of it. These little reminders of what Nicky is capable of—these reminders that he could be dangerous—never fail to get Joe achingly hard. It makes him feel like he’s tamed a tiger. 

Nicky _tsk_ s. “If I let you go, will you be good?”

“No,” Joe says cheerfully, grinning. Nicky’s lips twitch into a smile against his neck before he sucks a bite into it, and while Joe’s distracted by the sensation, he lets go of one of Joe’s hands to grab their cuffs from the nightstand drawer.

Nicky dangles them in front of Joe. “Is this what you’re after?”

Joe bites his lips and nods. 

Nicky buckles the cuffs around his wrists and threads the linking chain behind one of the headboard slats. 

“There,” Nicky says, surveying Joe with a predatory glint in his eye. 

“Going to take your time with me?” Joe asks breathlessly.

Nicky hums in agreement before he slides down between Joe’s legs and swallows his cock. Despite the implication otherwise, he doesn’t actually waste anytime teasing before he starts taking Joe as deep as he can, cheeks hollowed.

“Fuck, fuck, Nicky, your mouth is so good,” Joe gasps. “You’re so good. Fuck.” He thrusts to meet the wet heat of Nicky’s mouth, but Nicky gives the inside of his thigh a quick pinch before he holds his hips down against the mattress.

After several more minutes of torment, Nicky pulls off. “Do you want to come like this?” His voice is a little raspy. 

Joe shakes his head. “Want you inside me.”

Nicky’s pupils get a little darker, and he nods, reaching for the lube. He opens Joe on his thick fingers methodically, just slowly enough that it’s a tease. 

“More,” Joe begs once Nicky has two fingers inside him. 

“You’ll take what I give you,” Nicky says coolly, and Joe moans, eyes fluttering shut. 

Luckily Nicky doesn’t make him wait much longer before he pushes Joe’s legs up over his shoulders and slide into him, a slow and steady press. He doesn’t wait for Joe to adjust, just starts moving in steady, measured thrusts. 

“Fuck,” Joe groans, fists clenching uselessly in the restraints. Soon he’s used to the feeling of Nicky inside him and he wants more—Nicky’s thrusts are deep, but he wants it faster, harder.

“Nicky,” he breathes. “Come on, fuck me.”

Nicky huffs. “I am.”

“Harder. Please, baby—”

Nicky makes a low sound in his throat, then he gives Joe everything he asked for—sharp, quick thrusts that unfailingly nudge against his prostate. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He’s close, really close, and he thinks he might be able to come just like this, but then Nicky leans down to lock their mouths in a sloppy kiss at the same time he gets a hand around Joe’s cock, and Joe comes, shouting into Nicky’s mouth. Feeling boneless, he rides a wave of overstimulation until Nicky finishes inside him. 

Nicky drops his forehead against Joe’s, catching his breath for a moment before he unlinks the cuffs. Joe lets his hands fall to halo his head, and Nicky removes the cuffs, kissing each of Joe’s wrists. “Good?” he asks.

“It always is.” Joe beams as he wraps Nicky in his arms, subtly trying to roll him into a more permanent cuddling position.

“Joe,” Nicky says, reproaching.

“What?” he asks as innocently as he can manage.

“We need to clean this flat, and we need to do it in—” he glances at his phone “—the next forty-five minutes.”

Joe cranes his neck to get a look at the phone for himself. “Forty-five minutes? But we got back here ahead of schedule.”

“Yes, and then you insisted on a midday romp—”

“Hey,” Joe cuts in. “You were the one who wanted to take it nice and slow.”

Nicky shrugs. “I’ve done slower.” As if Joe doesn’t know. The memory of the time Nicky had him like this for an entire afternoon is never far beneath the surface of his thoughts. Joe came three times that day—first Nicky sucked him off, always a fan favorite, then he fingered him until he came untouched, and then he got Joe hard for a third time as he opened himself up before sinking down on Joe’s cock. 

Just the thought of it makes Joe’s cock twitch a little. 

“Okay, okay, let’s not point fingers,” he says benevolently, poking at Nicky’s cheek. Nicky swats his hand away and hops out of bed. He starts to get dressed, and Joe joins him with a sigh, regretting his insistence on picking Nile up from Calgary. As an act of petty revenge, he pulls on one of Nicky’s sweaters instead of his own.

“That’s not yours,” Nicky tells him, a little smirk playing on his lips.

Joe raises his eyebrows. “What are you gonna do about it?” 

“Nothing,” Nicky says easily. “I like seeing you in my clothes.”

Joe grins.

They make the bed in the second bedroom with freshly-washed sheets, then separate. Joe dusts and vacuums every room while Nicky cleans the bathroom and the kitchen. 

“Time?” Joe calls over his shoulder as he pushes the vacuum into the overflowing closet. 

“We need to leave in five minutes,” Nicky tells him. 

Joe stands back and surveys the apartment. “I think we’re good?” Satisfied that the vacuum is gone, Pancake surfaces from her hiding spot beneath the couch and rubs up against their legs.

“Yes,” Nicky agrees. Joe notices there’s a bit of tension in the set of his jaw. 

“Hey,” he says. “You okay?”

“Yes,” Nicky says, but then as Joe raises an eyebrow the corners of his mouth lift into a wry smile. “I—I am a little nervous,” he admits. 

Joe smiles and takes his hand. He kisses Nicky’s palm. “Hey. Nile’s gonna love you, okay?”

“I hope so.”

“She will,” he insists. “She’s been talking about this visit for a month. She’s excited.” It took awhile for Nile to come around to the idea of Joe shacking up with the guy who kidnapped him, but after a few video chats, including one with Nicky, she texted him, _it’d be cool to see you IRL soon,_ and followed it up with, _and your hot boyf_. 

The hot boyf in question leans in to kiss his check. “All right,” he tells Joe. “Let’s go, then.” 

Joe leans against the wall as Nicky locks up behind him. “I love you,” he says, because he hasn’t said it today, and because even months later, the words still make Nicky’s face light up with surprised happiness.

“I love you, too,” he tells Joe.

Joe can tell Nicky is still a little anxious, and he’s about to say more—to tell Nicky he’s the kindest, most selfless person Joe’s ever known, that he has the ass of an angel and he’s the love of Joe’s life, but then his phone pings with a text.

“Shit,” he says glancing at it. “Her plane just landed.” 

“Come on,” Nicky says. He grabs Joe’s hand and takes off running through the hallway, down the stairs, across the street. 

They draw a few bemused looks, but Joe grins the whole way. As they throw themselves into the car, a little out of breath, they meet each other’s eyes, and Joe knows that however he feels, Nicky feels the same. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really having a Feel now that this is over! It was so much fun to write and share with y'all and I hope it delivered. If you read along with this silly little story about a Very Romantic Kidnapping, please do let me know what you thought in the comments! I would also love to chat on [Tumblr](https://dreamtiwasanarchitect.tumblr.com/).
> 
> If there are bits in this chapter people would like to see expanded upon (Andy's or Nile's visits, some of the sex fights, date night), I would love to know it, because I'm not sure I'm ready to be done forever with this story! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know if you are into this, I feel insane thanks


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